Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a rapidly-growing neurosurgical practice that maintains an integral relationship between clinician and device manufacturer. This project aimed to evaluate the ethical mandate to include qualitative research and end-user (i.e. patient and caregiver) feedback in the design, development, implantation, and use of DBS devices for major DBS manufacturing companies.

This project was invited by the United States Department of Health and Human Services in order to examine privacy (and other ethical issues) as related to current and emerging neuotechnological developments. Mental privacy is becoming a key area of focus within several industries, including clinical/medical neurotechnology, social media, big data, and more.

With the advent and rapidly-expanding research into and use of brain-computer interfaces and implantable brain devices, we looked at how these emerging neurotechnologies may provide ethical issues for developers and manufacturers, as well as for the age-old clinical definition and determination of brain death.

A pioneering neurosurgeon and his team were (and continue to) seeking ethical guidance regarding a nuanced procedure in what has come to be known as ‘body-to-head transplantation.’ As a truly nuanced procedure with innovative medical techniques, as well as expected and important medical consequences should it be successful, the medical team wished to be assessed for objective, ethical risks and repercussions that may be encountered by patients, hospitals, the medical system, themselves, and much more.

This was an innovative project aimed at improving the impartiality of the judicial system – particularly with regards to voir doire, i.e. the jury selection process – by exploring the potential use of neuroimaging techniques to address racial biases and similar issues in the U.S. judiciary system.

The aim of this project was to assist multiple, nationwide youth football programs in the promotion of and decision to play football in light of the emerging evidence regarding long-term brain injury (i.e. chronic traumatic encephalopathy). Notably, it explored the ethical issues regarding the consent process, parent-team conferences, and how player injuries are handled.

In this report we use a case study of risk of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) to illustrate the contribution of systematic literature reviews of disease-specific ethical issues (DSEI). In particular, we show how ethically-relevant empirical data from such reviews can be used in the examination of the reasons for and against a particular normative approach to our DSEI.

Machine learning offers truly unprecedented diagnostic and prognostic opportunities as medicine endeavors to become more personalized and precise than ever before. Looking towards the clinical deployment of machine learning in healthcare, we explore whether ethical and judicial precedents would be better served if the growing body of ‘empirical validation’ studies were to prioritize, publish and share interpretable machine learning models.

This project explored the ethical obligations of healthcare professionals vis-à-vis disclosure of the risks and benefits of ECT for patients with depressive disorders.