Paul R Wolpe

• Ph.D.
• Managing Director at Emory University

Research involving recently deceased humans that are physiologically maintained following declaration of death by neurologic criteria—or ‘research involving the recently deceased’—can fill a translational research gap while reducing harm to animals and living human subjects. It also creates new challenges for honouring the donor’s legacy, respectin...

Rules are needed for human research in commercial spaceflight

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised a host of ethical challenges, but key among these has been the possibility that health care systems might need to ration scarce critical care resources. Rationing policies for pandemics differ by institution, health system, and applicable law. Most seem to agree that a patient’s ability to benefit from treatment and...

Over time, ethical judgments evolve, but so do the phenomena they are applied to. For example, plagiarism is a modern concept. Before the early eighteenth century, works did not generally have references or acknowledgments, and ideas were freely exchanged. As writing became an occupation, copying others' words became “unethical.” As cut and paste,...

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has or threatens to overwhelm health care systems. Many institutions are developing ventilator triage policies. Objective: To characterize the development of ventilator triage policies and compare policy content. Design: Survey and mixed-methods content analysis. Setting: North American hospi...

Increasingly, national governments across the globe are prioritizing investments in neuroscience. Currently, seven active or in-development national-level brain research initiatives exist, spanning four continents. Engaging with the underlying values and ethical concerns that drive brain research across cultural and continental divides is critical...

p>Recent developments in bioengineering promise the possibility of new diagnostic and treatment strategies, novel industrial processes, and innovative approaches to thorny problems in fields such as nutrition, agriculture, and biomanufacturing. As modern genetics has matured and developed technologies of increasing power, debates over risk assessme...

An ethical approach to evaluating the attachment of a donor head and a donor body¹1. In actuality, under current parlance, as Ren and Cenavero note, the procedure is a body transplant onto a head, as the body is considered the “donor” material. However, given my objections as described in the following, I use “head/body transplant” in this discussi...

Neuroethics is a subfield of bioethics, and examines the intersection of neuroscience, ethics, philosophy, social science, and law. Neuroethics largely deals with (1) the ethical and social challenges raised by new discoveries and inventions in neuroscience and neurotechnology and (2) the implications of neuroscientific discoveries for our concepti...

Adrienne Asch's death has deprived bioethics, and the scholarly world in general, of one of its strongest and most distinctive voices. Best known for her passionate advocacy of a different perspective on disability, Adrienne also helped challenge conventional wisdom on reproductive rights, medical exceptions of conscience, feminist scholarship, and...

The idea of creating a direct connection between a human brain and a computer has a long history in science fiction. The development of brain computer interfaces (BCI), technologies permitting direct communication between a user's brain and an external device, began to become a reality in the 1970s (Vidal, 1973), and have since captured the attenti...

The availability of curative, direct-acting antiviral drugs against hepatitis C virus (HCV) sparks an ethical call for HCV eradication and provides essential tools to spearhead the effort. Challenges include increasing awareness of the chronic hepatitis C epidemic, garnering sufficient public, private, and governmental financial will to invest in t...

With rapid advances in neuroimaging technology, there is growing concern over potential misuse of neuroradiologic imaging data in legal matters. On December 7 and 8, 2012, a multidisciplinary consensus conference, Use and Abuse of Neuroimaging in the Courtroom, was held at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Through this interactive forum, a high...

Each of us lives with an inner biographical narrative, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, the story that becomes our account of who we are. It is the story we have constructed about our life and its meaning, built from memories of our past—our childhood, our parents, our friends, our experiences. We construct that story through our subjec...

In the face of irrational opposition, it's time for the scientific community to have its own bumper sticker

Detection of deception and confirmation of truth telling with conventional polygraphy raised a host of technical and ethical issues. Recently, newer methods of recording electromagnetic signals from the brain show promise in permitting the detection of deception or truth telling. Some are even being promoted as more accurate than conventional polyg...

Major advances in the testing of oral fluid (e.g., saliva) may lead to the diagnosis and treatment of previously undiagnosed conditions and may enable dentists to manage oral disease more effectively. Such use of another body fluid, blood, is already well established. Blood is a complex tissue that has been extensively researched and is now used fo...

Personalized medicine is an emerging term for a medical philosophy that uses a person's individual clinical, genetic, genomic, and environmental information to tailor a treatment plan that will maximize efficacy and safety for that individual. While the technology offers much promise, it also is also challenged by some ethical and social questions...

Leading scholars debate politically progressive perspectives on bioethics and the implications for society, politics, and science in the twenty-first century. Bioethics has become increasingly politicized over the past decade. Conservative voices dominated the debate at first, but the recent resurgence of progressivism and the application of its fu...

Nanomedicine is a promising new technology, with implications for the manufacturing of a wide array of medical devices and therapies. However, it comes with risks that are still ill-defined. Both the positive and negative implications of nanomedicine must be considered as the field progresses. The push to develop new treatments and therapies based...

In John Donoghue's lab at Brown University sits Matthew Nagel, who is a quadraplegic. From the top of his head emerges a pedestal plug that is connected to a socket that runs to a computer. Hard-wired into that computer through a technology called BrainGate, Matthew can move the cursor entirely with his brain waves [1]. He has become so adept that...

The development of a successful lie detector has been a dream of governments and law enforcement since ancient times. A Hindu Veda written around 900 B.C.E. suggests a strategy for detecting lying behavior in suspects: A person who gives poison may be recognized. He does not answer questions, or they are evasive answers; he speaks nonsense, rubs th...

Physicians treating newly incapacitated patients often must help navigate surrogate decision-makers through a difficult course of treatment decisions, while safeguarding the patient's autonomy. We offer guidance for intensive care physicians who must frequently address the difficult questions concerning disclosure of confidential information to sur...

Paul Root Wolpe, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also holds appointments in the Department of Medical Ethics and the Department of Sociology. He is a Senior Fellow of Penn's Center for Bioethics, is the Director of the Program in Psychiatry and Ethics at the School of Medicine, and is...

An essential reference for the new discipline of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience that defines the field's approach of applying evolutionary theory to guide brain-behavior investigations. Since Darwin we have known that evolution has shaped all organisms and that biological organs—including the brain and the highly crafted animal nervous system—...

Science is a powerful force for change in modern society. As the professionals at its helm, scientists have a unique responsibility to shepherd that change with thoughtful advocacy of their research and careful ethical scrutiny of their own behavior.

To examine the role of the practitioner, informed consent, and genetic counseling in genetic testing decisions and to assess their relative influence on women's decision to have clinical BRCA1/2 testing. Qualitative study using in-depth open-ended interviews with 68 women who had considered clinical BRCA1/2 testing. Slightly less than half of the w...

Concern over stigma as a consequence of genetic testing has grown in response to the recent increase in genetic research and testing resulting from the Human Genome Project. However, whether a genetic or hereditary basis necessarily confers a stigma to a condition remains unexamined. We performed a qualitative interview study with 86 individuals wi...

The potential benefits of neuroscientific research into sexuality are great, but neuroscientists must participate in debates over the social, forensic and therapeutic implications of their findings. If serious research in sexuality is to be supported by the public, researchers must continue to earn society's trust with responsible and thoughtful pr...

The religious beliefs and spirituality of patients on hemodialysis (HD) therapy have not been studied extensively. Studies of the dialysis population seem to indicate that religion may be associated with increased patient satisfaction with life and increased levels of social support. Using multiple religiosity scales and scales to assess patient sa...

Our growing ability to alter brain function can be used to enhance the mental processes of normal individuals as well as to treat mental dysfunction in people who are ill. The prospect of neurocognitive enhancement raises many issues about what is safe, fair and otherwise morally acceptable. This article resulted from a meeting on neurocognitive en...

The eye may be window to the soul, but neuroscientists aim to get inside and measure the interior directly. There's also talk about moving some walls.

C ongress christened the 1990s "the decade of the brain," and this was apt from the vantage point of the early 21st Century. Great strides were made in both basic and clinical neuroscience. What the current decade may, in retrospect, be re-membered for is the growth of neuroscience beyond those two categories, "basic" and "clinical," into a host of...

Our growing ability to alter brain function can be used to enhance the mental processes of normal individuals as well as to treat mental dysfunction in people who are ill. The prospect of neurocognitive enhancement raises many issues about what is safe, fair and otherwise morally acceptable. This article resulted from a meeting on neurocognitive en...

Recent advances in the brain sciences have dramatically improved our understanding of brain function. As we find out more and more about what makes us tick, we must stop and consider the ethical implications of this new found knowledge. Will having a new biology of the brain through imaging make us less responsible for our behavior and lose our fre...

Medical training must at some point use live patients to hone the skills of health professionals. But there is also an obligation to provide optimal treatment and to ensure patients' safety and well-being. Balancing these two needs represents a fundamental ethical tension in medical education. Simulation-based learning can help mitigate this tensio...

In the past year "neuroethics" has begun to command the attention of neuroscientists, ethicists and journalists. Ethical questions associated with new knowledge of the human brain have received extensive coverage in the popular press with cover stories in The Economist and The New Scientist. There has also been a burst of discussion in the scientif...

Medical training must at some point use live patients to hone the skills of health professionals. But there is also an obligation to provide optimal treatment and to ensure patients' safety and well-being. Balancing these two needs represents a fundamental ethical tension in medical education. Simulation-based learning can help mitigate this tensio...

Microelectronics and medical imaging are bringing us closer to a world where mind reading is possible and blindness banished - but we may not want to live there. New ways of imaging the human brain and new developments in microelectronics are providing unprecedented capabilities for monitoring the brain in real time and even for controlling brain f...

The American Journal of Bioethics 3.4 (2003) vii-viii It is probably not an exaggeration to say that bioethics as a discipline is more the child of research ethics than clinical ethics. From Nuremberg to Jesse Gelsinger, the threat to human life and dignity posed by the temptations of using human subjects as experimental fodder has produced some of...

Emerging neurotechnologies, including psychopharmaceuticals, brain stimulation, implantable brain chips, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and brain imaging raise a number of ethical questions. One of the most contentious is the proper role of these technologies in improving or increasing mental and neurological traits and skills in those with no...

The American Journal of Bioethics 3.3 (2003) 68-69 The modern conversation about human enhancement was kick-started about ten years ago when Peter Kramer, carefully listening to Prozac, asked what it meant when his patients reported being "better than well." Since then scholars have dedicated enormous energy to rendering problematic what is actuall...

As David Stenmark prepared his Presidential address to what was then the Division of Community Psychology* of the American Psychological Association, he was approached by his daughter, Marci, and asked what he was writing and why. Carefully he explained his leadership role in the Division and that the talk provided an opportunity to review the disc...

The American Journal of Bioethics 2.4 (2002) 62-63 Arri Eisen and Roberta M. Berry's (2002) lament about teaching research ethics to scientists is shared, I venture, by all ethicists who try to teach, advise, or cope with the ethical challenges of basic science. Their suggestions and basic plea for more ethical training are laudable. I would like t...

Human embryonic stem cells can divide indefinitely and have the potential to develop into many types of tissue. Research on these cells is essential to one of the most intriguing medical frontiers, regenerative medicine. It also raises a host of difficult ethical issues and has sparked great public interest and controversy. This book offers a found...

Continuous quality improvement is an accepted mandate in healthcare services. The delivery of the best, evidence based quality of care ultimately depends on the competences of practitioners as well as the system that supports their work. Medical education has been increasingly called upon to insure providers possess the skills and understanding nec...

Some choice: Law, medicine, and the market. George J. Annas (Oxford University Press, New York, New York, 1998), 303 pages, $28.95.

The response of Barbara Pfeffer Billauer to my article "If I Am Only My Genes, What Am I? Genetic Essentialism and a Jewish Response" highlights the conflict between a sociological understanding of religion and the resistance to such analysis from within a faith tradition. Ms. Billauer makes three main points; the first strangely credits to me, and...

It was our purpose to determine the characteristics of practitioners in the United States who were among the first to inquire about and use the BRCA1 and BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) genetic tests outside of a research protocol. Questionnaires were mailed to all practitioners who requested information on or ordered a BRCA1/2 test from the University of Pennsylv...

It was a hot summer night, the kind where the air is so thick it seems to ooze into your lungs. I heard a knock on the door. I complained.

For decades, all federally funded research involving human subjects has been subject to regulations that require the informed consent of the subject and oversight by the local institution. These regulations last underwent major revision in 1981 and have remained unchanged despite significant changes in the nature of clinical science, the financial...

For decades, all federally funded research involving human subjects has been subject to regulations that require the informed consent of the subject and oversight by the local institution. These regulations last underwent major revision in 1981 and have remained unchanged despite significant changes in the nature of clinical science, the financial...

The authors present the results of a survey that inquired into the religious life of 121 residents from 5 psychiatric residency programs. In addition, the study sought to explore the didactic and supervision experience of the residents regarding religious issues. The authors' results show that this group of residents appears to be more religious th...

With the advent of the Genetic Age comes a unique new set of problems and ethical decisions. There is a tendency to take the scientific developments presented by modern genetics at face value, as if the science itself were value-neutral and not influenced by cultural and religious images. One example of the fallout of the Genetic Age is the develop...

Banking umbilical cord blood (UCB) to be used as a source of stem cells for transplantation is associated with a set of ethical issues. An examination of these issues is needed to inform public policy and to raise the awareness of prospective parents, clinicians, and investigators. Individuals with expertise in anthropology, blood banking, bone mar...