Kathinka Evers

Uppsala University | UU

La relation entre la réflexion neuroéthique et la diversité culturelle fait l’objet d’un débat de plus en plus vif. La neuroéthique, qui vise à faciliter la création d’une interface entre les neurosciences et la société dans son ensemble, s’intéresse tout particulièrement à l’impact de la culture sur la science et sur la perception de la science pa...

In recent years, brain research has indisputably entered a new epoch, driven by substantial methodological advances and digitally enabled data integration and modelling at multiple scales— from molecules to the whole brain. Major advances are emerging at the intersection of neuroscience with technology and computing. This new science of the brain c...

Significant advances in the scientific investigation of the neurobiology of consciousness have been slow to be translated into clinical settings, limited by factors of conceptual (e.g., what is consciousness?), methodological (e.g., how to identify reliable indicators of consciousness?), and technical (e.g., how to improve sensitivity and specifici...

How deep is the current diversity in the panoply of theories to define consciousness, and to what extent do these theories share common denominators? Here we first examine to what extent different theories are commensurable (or comparable) along particular dimensions. We posit logical (and, when applicable, empirical) commensurability as a necessar...

Brain research has in recent years indisputably entered a new epoch, driven by substantial methodological advances and digitally enabled data integration and modeling at multiple scales – from molecules to the whole system. Major advances are emerging at the intersection of neuroscience with technology and computing. This new science of the brain i...

Contemporary ethical analysis of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is growing rapidly. One of its most recognizable outcomes is the publication of a number of ethics guidelines that, intended to guide governmental policy, address issues raised by AI design, development, and implementation and generally present a set of recommendations. Here we propose t...

Background Assessing consciousness in other subjects, particularly in non-verbal and behaviourally disabled subjects (e.g., patients with disorders of consciousness), is notoriously challenging but increasingly urgent. The high rate of misdiagnosis among disorders of consciousness raises the need for new perspectives in order to inspire new technic...

In this article, we present and analyse the concept of Digital Twin (DT) linked to distinct types of objects (artefacts, natural, inanimate or living) and examine the challenges involved in creating them from a fundamental neuroethics approach that emphasises conceptual analyses. We begin by providing a brief description of DTs and their initial de...

Despite poor treatment results, a family-oriented approach and the securing of residency have been deemed essential to recovery from resignation syndrome (RS). In a retrospective cohort study, we evaluated an alternative method involving environmental therapy, with patients separated from their parents, while actively abstaining from involving the...

The Ethics and Society Subproject has developed this Opinion in order to clarify lessons the Human Brain Project (HBP) can draw from the current discussion of artificial intelligence, in particular the social and ethical aspects of AI, and outline areas where it could usefully contribute. The EU and numerous other bodies are promoting and implement...

In this essay we propose that “the hard problem” of consciousness - the difficulty to equate physical brain states with corresponding phenomenal experiences - is in part an illusion deriving from the language that some philosophers and scientists use to describe where and how consciousness occurs. The scientific premises underlying our hypothesis i...

The debate over whether the belief in possessing a “ free will” can be maintained in the light of modern science, in particular neuroscience, has often been presented as a choice between two extremes. On the one hand, we have the conception of strict determinism excluding free will ; on the other hand, we have a conception of freedom of choice excl...

Ethical reflection on Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a priority. In this article, we propose a methodological model for a comprehensive ethical analysis of some uses of AI, notably as a replacement of human actors in specific activities. We emphasize the need for conceptual clarification of relevant key terms (e.g., intelligence) in order...

Progress in neuroscience – notably, on the dynamic functions of neural networks – has deepened our understanding of decision‐making, acquisition of character and temperament, and the development of moral dispositions. The evolution of our cerebral architecture is both genetic and epigenetic: the nervous system develops in continuous interaction wit...

The excellent commentaries to our target paper hint upon three main issues, (i) spatiotemporal neuroscience; (ii) neuro-mental relationship; and (iii) mind, brain, and world relationship. (i) We therefore discuss briefly the history of Spatiotemporal Neuroscience. Distinguishing it from Cognitive Neuroscience and related branches (like Affective, S...

AI research is growing rapidly raising various ethical issues related to safety, risks, and other effects widely discussed in the literature. We believe that in order to adequately address those issues and engage in a productive normative discussion it is necessary to examine key concepts and categories. One such category is anthropomorphism. It is...

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is an important ethical, legal, and political theme for the European Commission. Although variously defined, it is generally understood as an interactive process that engages social actors, researchers, and innovators who must be mutually responsive and work towards the ethical permissibility of the relevan...

In today’s society, it becomes increasingly important to assess which non-human and non-verbal beings possess consciousness. This review article aims to delineate criteria for consciousness especially in animals, while also taking into account intelligent artifacts. First, we circumscribe what we mean with “consciousness” and describe key features...

Neuroscience has made considerable progress in unraveling the neural correlates of mental phenomena like self, consciousness, and perception. However, the "common currency" shared between neuronal and mental activity, brain and mind, remains yet unclear. In this article, we propose that the dynamics of time and space provides a "common currency" th...

Recognizing that its research may raise various ethical, social, and philosophical issues, the HBP has made the identification, examination, and management of those issues a top priority. The Ethics and Society sub-project is part of the core research project.

Current and newly emerging insights and technologies arising from research in brain sciences increase capabilities to access, assess and affect thought, emotion and behaviour. While much of this research and development is directed towards clinical use, it also has applications in other settings, notably in the political, security, intelligence and...

Extant and newly developing techniques and technologies generated by research in brain sciences are characteristically employed in clinical medicine. However, the increasing capabilities conferred by these approaches to access, assess and affect cognition, emotion and behavior render them viable and attractive for engagement beyond the clinical rea...

In the present paper, we suggest a potential new ethical analysis of addiction focusing on the relationship between aware and unaware processing in the brain. We take the case of the opioids epidemics to argue that a consideration of both aware and unaware processing provides a more comprehensive ethical framework to discuss the ethical issues rais...

In this article, we begin by identifying three main neuroethical approaches: neurobioethics, empirical neuroethics, and conceptual neuroethics. Our focus is on conceptual approaches that generally emphasize the need to develop and use a methodological modus operandi for effectively linking scientific (i.e., neuroscience) and philosophical (i.e., et...

Modeling and simulations have gained a leading position in contemporary attempts to describe, explain, and quantitatively predict the human brain’s operations. Computer models are highly sophisticated tools developed to achieve an integrated knowledge of the brain with the aim of overcoming the actual fragmentation resulting from different neurosci...

Background: Ethical analyses of disorders of consciousness traditionally focus on residual awareness. Going one step further, this paper explores the potential ethical relevance of the unawareness retained by patients with disorders of consciousness, focusing specifically on the ethical implications of the description of the unconscious provided b...

Science and philosophy still lack an overarching theory of consciousness. We suggest that a further step toward it requires going beyond the view of the brain as input-output machine and focusing on its intrinsic activity, which may express itself in two distinct modalities, i.e. aware and unaware. We specifically investigate the predisposition of...

Social neuroscience is shedding new light on the relationship between the brain and its environments. In the process, and despite criticism from the social sciences, the field is contributing to the discussion of long-standing controversies concerning, for example, the “nature-nurture” distinction and the relationships between social and neurobiolo...

There are different dominant perspectives, theories, and methodologies within neuroethics, each importantly shaping the identification, understanding, and discussion of the relevant ethical, social, philosophical and scientific issues. In this chapter, we first provide a brief overview of current neuroethical approaches calling attention to a commo...

Several studies have identified associations between poverty and development of self-regulation during childhood, which is broadly defined as those skills involved in cognitive, emotional, and stress self-regulation. These skills are influenced by different individual and contextual factors at multiple levels of analysis (i.e., individual, family,...

Neuroethics research can contribute a level of conceptual clarity to international brain research initiatives that is essential for their ethics management as well as for the interpretations, applications and management of their emerging neuroscientific findings. © 2016 Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights...

During the long period of postnatal development in humans, the cerebral cortex undergoes intense synaptogenesis, which persists into adulthood. The steady interaction with the physical, social, and cultural environment drives an epigenetic selection of neuronal networks to internalize, in particular, the common cultural and ethical rules of the soc...

Disorders of consciousness (DOCs) cause great human suffering and material costs for society. Understanding of these disorders has advanced remarkably in recent years, but uncertainty remains with respect to the diagnostic criteria and standards of care. One of the most serious problems concerns misdiagnoses, their impact on medical decision-making...

Neurotechnology and Direct Brain Communication focuses on recent neuroscientific investigations of infant brains and of patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC), both of which are at the forefront of contemporary neuroscience. The prospective use of neurotechnology to access mental states in these subjects, including neuroimag- ing, brain sim...

A unique interdisciplinary collection of papers and commentaries by leading researchers and rising scholars, representing the latest research on consciousness, mind, and brain. This collection offers the most comprehensive collection on consciousness, brain, and mind available. It gathers 39 original papers by leaders in the field followed by comme...

A unique interdisciplinary collection of papers and commentaries by leading researchers and rising scholars, representing the latest research on consciousness, mind, and brain. This collection offers the most comprehensive collection on consciousness, brain, and mind available. It gathers 39 original papers by leaders in the field followed by comme...

A unique interdisciplinary collection of papers and commentaries by leading researchers and rising scholars, representing the latest research on consciousness, mind, and brain. This collection offers the most comprehensive collection on consciousness, brain, and mind available. It gathers 39 original papers by leaders in the field followed by comme...

Resignation syndrome (RS) designates a long-standing disorder predominately affecting psychologically traumatised children and adolescents in the midst of a strenuous and lengthy migration process. Typically a depressive onset is followed by gradual withdrawal progressing via stupor into a state that prompts tube feeding and is characterised by fai...

Simulation is a powerful method in science and engineering. However, simulation is an umbrella term, and its meaning and goals differ among disciplines. Rapid advances in neuroscience and computing draw increasing attention to large-scale brain simulations. What is the meaning of simulation, and what should the method expect to achieve? We discuss...

The directive 2001/20/UE and the research involving patients with docs. Research involving patients with disorders of consciousness (DOCs) deserves special ethical and legal attention because of its Janus-faced nature. On the one hand, it raises concerns about the risk to expose the involved subjects to disproportionate risks not respecting their i...

The paper starts by analyzing recent advancements in neurotechnological assessment of residual consciousness in patients with disorders of consciousness and in neurotechnology-mediated communication with them. Ethical issues arising from these developments are described, with particular focus on informed consent. Against this background, we argue f...

Access to other minds once presupposed other individuals' expressions and narrations. Today, several methods have been developed which can measure brain states relevant for assessments of mental states without 1st person overt external behavior or speech. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and trace conditioning are used clinically to identify p...

Hasta ahora, el acceso a otras mentes presuponía las expresiones y narraciones de los individuos. En la actualidad, se han desarrollado varios métodos que pueden medir los estados cerebrales relevantes para valorar las facultades mentales sin que se manifieste en 1ª persona habla o comportamiento externo alguno. La resonancia magnética funcional y...

In 2011, for the first time ever, two scientific journals were asked not to publish research papers in full detail. The research in question was on the H5N1 influenza virus (bird flu), and the concern was that the expected public health benefits of disseminating the findings did not outweigh the potential harm should the knowledge be misused for ma...

Life scientists have with increasing intensity been requested to recognize and take responsibility for the potential dual use implications of their work. To assist in meeting these demands, a number of educational modules have been produced to raise awareness of relevant dual use and biosecurity issues. A main purpose of such efforts has been to nu...

Biobank policy and regulations profoundly vary between different societies. One area with profound differences in culture and tradition concerns commercialization, and the possibility of using the human body as a capital resource. In the United States there is acceptance of this possibility, whereas European law is based on principles that categori...

Pharmacogenomic developments hold promise for personalized medicine in psychiatry with adjusted therapeutic doses, predictable responses, reduced adverse drug reactions, early diagnosis, and personal health planning. The prospects are exciting, but at the same time, these new techniques stand faced with important scientific, ethical, legal, and soc...

Most life science research entails dual-use complexity and may be misused for harmful purposes, e.g. biological weapons. The Precautionary Principle applies to special problems characterized by complexity in the relationship between human activities and their consequences. This article examines whether the principle, so far mainly used in environme...

In the past decade, the perception of a bioterrorist threat has increased and created a demand on life scientists to consider the potential security implications of dual use research. This article examines a selection of proposed moral obligations for life scientists that have emerged to meet these concerns and the extent to which they can be consi...

Neuroethics is an area concerned with the possible benefitsand dangers of modern research on the brain. Researchers inneuroethics have focused mainly on applied neuroethics, suchas ethical issues involved in neuroimaging techniques, cognitiveenhancement, or neuropharmacology (Illes 2006). Another important,less prevalent, scientific approach is fun...

Early in the twenty‐first century, neuroscience has developed into a major research field that is rapidly spawning new academic disciplines. One of these is neuroethics, which has been described as an “unexplored continent lying between the two populated shores of ethics and of neuroscience” and “a new area of intellectual and social discourse” (Ro...

The objective of this study was to suggest a new formulation of the core research diagnostic consensus criterion "loss of insight" in frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Eight patients with FTD (diagnoses made by interviews, medical and neuropsychological examination, CT scan, and regional cerebral glucose metabolism measured by positron emission tomogr...

Mammalian embryonic stem cells have the potential to differentiate into all cell types of an adult individual. The culturing of human embryonic stem cells renders possible studies that were previously only available in animal models. Embryonic stem cells constitute a particularly attractive tool for studies of self-renewal, commitment, differentiat...

If stem-cell research were allowed to develop further, advances in this field could ensure the treatment of numerous human diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, diabetes, and leukemia. A bank of stem-cell lines is currently being developed in Sweden. On the other hand, it is clear that the ne...

A traditional belief is that there is but one self to a body, and that each of us has a single biography and personality. Varieties of this monistic view have dominated most of mankind’s intellectual history in philosophy, science, religion, and psychology, as well as legal and social theory. It has been challenged by appeal to those people whom ps...

Without Abstract

A common concern with respect to cloning is based on the belief that cloning produces identical individuals. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what type of identityrelation cloning involves. The concept “identity” is ambiguous, and the statement that cloning produces “identical” individuals is not meaningful unless the notion of identity is...

The belief that memory is essential to the self is common. Extreme amnesia, e.g., Korsakoff Syndrome, is held to dissolve the afflicted person's self. This belief is a misconception that rests on a confusion of epistemic with ontological relevance. Epistemically, memory is relevant to the self: a subject's self-knowledge partly depends on memories...