[Ethics in Pediatric Neurology]

There are various types of serious pediatric neurological diseases, although the absolute number of children with either of them is small. These children often have life-threatening conditions with severe disability and rely on medical technologies. Each child follows a different illness trajectory, which makes it difficult to predict his/her prognosis. Given the multiple treatment options, it becomes harder to know when "enough" is enough and what is best for the child. When it comes to critical decision-making, we, as healthcare providers, need to develop a trustful relationship with the parents and promote shared decision-making to fulfill their child's best interest. It is crucial to know what the parents hope and fear, and provide them with access to comprehensive, evidence-based information about their child's current and potential healthcare needs. In this article, four complex ethical issues are reviewed. A broad and constructive discussion is long awaited to ensure that these children's lives are enhanced to their best potential and treated with dignity in our society.

End of life

In legal physician-hastened death, a physician prescribes medication with the primary intent of causing the death of a willing terminally ill patient. This practice differs radically from palliative sedation, intended to relieve a patient's suffering rather than cause a patient's death. In this position paper, we argue that the practice of physician-hastened death is contrary to the interests of patients, their families, and the sound ethical practice of medicine. Therefore, the American Academy of Neurology should advise its members against this practice, as it had done until 2018.

[Neuroethics of body transplantation]

INTRODUCTION

Recent contributions to the specialised literature address the topic of body transplantation, mostly produced by Sergio Canavero and a group of researchers from China. For several years they have been announcing that they will carry out the procedure, but it has still not been performed.

AIMS

The aim of this study is to perform a neuroethical analysis of body transplantation, based on the methodology of Diego Gracia on ethics and bioethics and an analysis of facts, values and duties. Furthermore, we also propose that, with the knowledge available today, body transplantation must be addressed from the perspective of research ethics.

DEVELOPMENT

As regards the facts, it can be said that, although the history of attempts to perform a body transplant dates back almost a century, there are many limitations preventing it from being performed with our current knowledge. This is due to the fact that no serious and rigorous preclinical research has been conducted (at most some anecdotal data can be found). With the data that is available, it does not even seem possible to think of designing a protocol to include human beings for body transplantation. In terms of values, according to the model developed by Emanuel, who proposes eight requirements that must be met to comply with the ethics of clinical research, it is not even possible to comply with one of them. Regarding duties, it would be wise to recommend that such a procedure should not be carried out on humans.

CONCLUSIONS

Considering the scientific knowledge currently available and the values of research ethics, a body transplantation should not be performed in human beings either as clinical research or as clinical practice.

Neuropalliative Care: A Practical Guide for the Neurologist

Neuropalliative care is a new and growing field within neurology that focuses on improving the quality of life of patients with serious neurologic illnesses. While specialty-level palliative care training is available to interested neurologists, all neurologists can strive to provide primary palliative care for their patients. In this review, we will describe the scope of neuropalliative care, define patient populations who may benefit from palliative care, and explore the communication and symptom management skills essential to palliative care delivery.

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: Part 4 - Ethical issues in clinical and social applications of neuroscience

BACKGROUND

As a discipline, neuroethics addresses a range of questions and issues generated by basic neuroscientific research (inclusive of studies of putative neurobiological processes involved in moral and ethical cognition and behavior), and its use and meanings in the clinical and social spheres. Here, we present Part 4 of a four-part bibliography of the neuroethics literature focusing on clinical and social applications of neuroscience, to include: the treatment-enhancement discourse; issues arising in neurology, psychiatry, and pain care; neuroethics education and training; neuroethics and the law; neuroethics and policy and political issues; international neuroethics; and discourses addressing "trans-" and "post-" humanity.

METHODS

To complete a systematic survey of the literature, 19 databases and 4 individual open-access journals were employed. Searches were conducted using the indexing language of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). A Python code was used to eliminate duplications in the final bibliography.

RESULTS

When taken with Parts 1-3, this bibliography aims to provide a listing of international peerreviewed papers, books, and book chapters published from 2002 through 2016. While seeking to be as comprehensive as possible, it may be that some works were inadvertently and unintentionally not included. We therefore invite commentary from the field to afford completeness and contribute to this bibliography as a participatory work-in-progress.

The Code of Professional Conduct for the Neurocritical Care Society

Part of the responsibility of a professional society is to establish the expectations for appropriate behavior for its members. Some codes are so essential to a society that the code itself becomes the central document defining the organization and its tenets, as we see with the Hippocratic Oath. In that tradition, we have revised the code of professional conduct for the Neurocritical Care Society into its current version, which emphasizes guidelines for personal behavior, relationships with fellow members, relationships with patients, and our interactions with society as a whole. This will be a living document and updated as the needs of our society change in time.Available online: http://www.neurocriticalcare.org/about-us/bylaws-procedures-and-code-professional-conduct (1) Code of professional conduct (this document) (2) Leadership code of conduct (3) Disciplinary policy.

On balance: weighing harms and benefits in fundamental neurological research using nonhuman primates

One of the most controversial areas of animal research is the use of nonhuman primates for fundamental research. At the centre of the controversy is the question of whether the benefits of research outweigh the harms. We argue that the evaluation of harms and benefits is highly problematic. We describe some common procedures in neurological research using nonhuman primates and the difficulties in evaluating the harm involved. Even if the harm could be quantified, it is unlikely that it could be meaningfully aggregated over different procedures, let alone different animals. A similar problem arises for evaluating benefits. It is not clear how benefits could be quantified, and even if they could be, values for different aspects of expected benefits cannot be simply added up. Sorting harms and benefits in three or four categories cannot avoid the charge of arbitrariness and runs the risk of imposing its structure on the moral decision. The metaphor of weighing or balancing harms and benefits is inappropriate for the moral decision about whether to use nonhuman primates for research. Arguing that the harms and benefits in this context are incommensurable, we suggest describing the moral consideration of harms and benefits as a coherent trade-off. Such a decision does not require commensurability. It must be well-informed about the suffering involved and the potential benefits, it must be consistent with the legal, regulatory and institutional framework within which it is made, and it must cohere with other judgments in relevant areas.

[Not Available]

The legislative developments that led to the Three-year Degree of the Health Professions poses any health professional in the position of having to comply with the ethical and legal duty to obtain valid informed consent from the patient prior to treatment. In the present work, attention was focused on the figure of the occupational therapist.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Informed consent forms have been developed according to the specific disease from which the patient undergoing occupational therapy is affected. The following categories of sick were identified: amputation, developmental age, orthopedy, spinal cord injury, neurology, psychiatry, geriatry and oncology.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

The consent forms are particularly well suited to obtaining valid consent from the patient and, at the same time, allow the occupational therapist to obtain all the information he/she needs to carry out the treatment in safety. This results improved patient compliance to therapy by facilitating a better empathic relationship with the therapist.

Ethical Issues in Neuroprognostication after Severe Pediatric Brain Injury

Neurologic outcome prediction, or neuroprognostication, after severe brain injury in children is a challenging task and has many ethical dimensions. Neurologists and intensivists are frequently asked by families to predict functional recovery after brain injury to help guide medical decision making despite limited outcome data. Using two clinical cases of children with severe brain injury from different mechanisms: hypoxic-ischemic injury secondary to cardiac arrest and traumatic brain injury, this article first addresses the importance of making a correct diagnosis in a child with a disorder of consciousness and then discusses some of the clinical challenges with deducing an accurate and timely outcome prediction. We further explore the ethical obligations of physicians when supporting parental decision making. We highlight the need to focus on how to elicit family values for a brain injured child, how to manage prognostic uncertainty, and how to effectively communicate with families in these challenging situations. We offer guidance for physicians when they have diverging views from families on aggressiveness of care or feel pressured to prognosticate with in a "window of opportunity" for limiting or withdrawing life sustaining therapies. We conclude with a discussion of the potential influence of emerging technologies, specifically advanced functional neuroimaging, on neurologic outcome prediction after severe brain injury.

Ethical implications of an incidentally discovered asymptomatic Chiari malformation in a competitive athlete

The clinical and ethical implications of an asymptomatic 17-year-old competitive football player incidentally found to have a type 1 Chiari malformation without a syrinx on brain imaging are discussed. Considering that patients with Chiari malformations can sustain irreversible neurologic injury or death after a mild head injury, and given the lack of data describing the risk of catastrophic injury after head trauma, the ethics of clearing this athlete to return to play are reviewed.

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: part 2--Neuroscientific studies of morality and ethics

BACKGROUND

Moral philosophy and psychology have sought to define the nature of right and wrong, and good and evil. The industrial turn of the twentieth century fostered increasingly technological approaches that conjoined philosophy to psychology, and psychology to the natural sciences. Thus, moral philosophy and psychology became ever more vested to investigations of the anatomic structures and physiologic processes involved in cognition, emotion and behavior--ultimately falling under the rubric of the neurosciences. Since 2002, neuroscientific studies of moral thought, emotions and behaviors have become known as--and a part of--the relatively new discipline of neuroethics. Herein we present Part 2 of a bibliography of neuroethics from 2002-2013 addressing the "neuroscience of ethics"--studies of putative neural substrates and mechanisms involved in cognitive, emotional and behavioral processes of morality and ethics.

METHODS

A systematic survey of the neuroethics literature was undertaken. Bibliographic searches were performed by accessing 11 databases, 8 literature depositories, and 4 individual journal searches, and employed indexing language for National Library of Medicine (NLM) Medical Subject Heading databases. All bibliographic searches were conducted using the RefWorks citation management program.

RESULTS

This bibliography lists 397 articles, 65 books, and 52 book chapters that present (1) empirical/experimental studies, overviews, and reviews of neural substrates and mechanisms involved in morality and ethics, and/or (2) reflections upon such studies and their implications. These works present resources offering iterative descriptions, definitions and criticisms of neural processes involved in moral cognition and behaviors, and also provide a historical view of this field, and insights to its developing canon.

[Conflict of Interest Guidelines of the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology: Current Status and Considerations in the Area of Psychiatry]

In 2011, the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology released the Guidelines on Conflict of Interest(COI) in Clinical Research and detailed regulations. According to the Guidelines, the COI Committee has been engaged in COI management for a one-year trial period. The members of the Society have to disclose their COIs at the time of presentations, manuscript submissions, and publications; the board and committees members have to disclose their COIs to the President of the Society; and the President reports these COI disclosures to the COI Committee. In this article, we provide a summary of this year's COI disclosures: among the 455 board and committees members, 297 were without COIs (68.5%); 98 (excluding the following two problematic cases) disclosed COIs (23.1%, excluding the following two cases); two cases were discussed regarding whether or not they were problematic (0.44%); 11 (2.4%) cases have not yet been reviewed because of a delay in disclosure; and 25 cases have yet to be disclosed (5.5%). Responding to serious COI-related affairs in other disease areas, public interest in the COI ssue has been increasing. Additionally, the Japanese Pharaceutical Manufacturers Association (JPMA) implemented Transparency Guidelines, and companies are disclosing their payments for lectures or manuscript fees to individual researchers. We should foster a deeper understanding of the concept of COI and discuss COI management in society more extensively.

Cosmetic neurology: the role of healthcare professionals

In an age of modern technology and an increasing movement towards a 24-h working culture, life for many is becoming more stressful and demanding. To help juggle these work commitments and an active social life, nootropic medication, (the so-called 'smart pills') have become a growing part of some people's lives. Users claim that these drugs allow them to reach their maximal potential by becoming more efficient, smarter and requiring less sleep. The use of these medications and the role of health professionals in their distribution raises many ethical questions.

The new frontier of genetically targeted therapies for muscle disease

This article presents the case of a 5-year-old boy with Duchenne muscular dystrophy who is eligible to enroll in a clinical trial of gene therapy for this disorder. His parents are grappling with the decision about whether to enroll him. Among the issues under consideration are the potential risks and benefits to him, the costs of participating (because frequent, partially reimbursed travel is involved), and the potential cost savings of receiving this treatment on a research basis rather than as a clinically approved therapy. His parents seek the advice of his pediatric neurologist. After careful consideration of the various factors above, the pediatric neurologist explains to the family that participating in the trial is ethically permissible but that, given the uncertain benefits and potential for substantial expenses without benefit to the child, participation should not be regarded as ethically obligatory.

Ethics in prion disease

This paper is intended to discuss some of the scientific and ethical issues that are created by increased research efforts towards earlier diagnosis, as well as to treatment of, human prion diseases (and related dementias), including the resulting consequences for individuals, their families, and society. Most patients with prion disease currently are diagnosed when they are about 2/3 of the way through their disease course (Geschwind et al., 2010a; Paterson et al., 2012b), when the disease has progressed so far that even treatments that stop the disease process would probably have little benefit. Although there are currently no treatments available for prion diseases, we and others have realized that we must diagnose patients earlier and with greater accuracy so that future treatments have hope of success. As approximately 15% of prion diseases have a autosomal dominant genetic etiology, this further adds to the complexity of ethical issues, particularly regarding when to conduct genetic testing, release of genetic results, and when or if to implement experimental therapies. Human prion diseases are both infectious and transmissible; great care is required to balance the needs of the family and individual with both public health needs and strained hospital budgets. It is essential to proactively examine and address the ethical issues involved, as well as to define and in turn provide best standards of care.

[Neuroethics: ethical issues in neurosciences]

Neuroethics is a field of bioethics on the ethical challenges of advances in neuroscience. Born in the early 2000s, neuroethics is considering a number of issues raised by the opportunities created by advances in knowledge and techniques in the field of neurology and psychiatry. In fact, what we learn about brain functions allows us to potentially influence our behavior and our actions, and questions human nature, freedom and individual responsibility, and even the place of morality in our society.

Legal process, litigation, and judicial decisions

Ethically salient issues in neurologic care may have important legal overtones. This chapter considers some of these, emphasizing how law may influence the outcome of controversies over how best to promote autonomy, beneficence, and justice in the care of individuals with neurologic disorders. Constitutional, statutory, and judicial dimensions are addressed. With respect to autonomy, discussion emphasizes legal dimensions of the doctrine of informed consent and the obligations of medical professionals to protect the privacy and confidentiality of their patients. The discussion of beneficence focuses on issues relating to actual or potential conflicts of interest in the care of patients and on the conduct of research involving human subjects. The section on justice considers how law aims to define protectable rights and interests of individuals and to provide a fair and efficient process for resolving disputes. Applications of legal principles and doctrines are illustrated primarily through the examples afforded by judicial decisions. These cases demonstrate how law both promotes ethical decision-making and protects the rights and interests of those affected. The cases also highlight some of the ethical quandaries that evoke resort to litigation and the limits of law in advancing ethically appropriate outcomes.

Ethical considerations in pediatric neurology

The practice of pediatric neurology demands a high level of responsibility at multiple levels. These include listening carefully to people's stories in order to assess each situation, planning and implementing investigations and therapies, individual and family counseling, longitudinal follow-up from fetal life throughout childhood and adolescence, organization of transition to adult care, and societal advocacy. In the 21st century these activities must be carried out in the context of major societal and technological changes which have brought about many new challenges for pediatric neurologists. In this chapter, we address ethical and moral issues that may help guide pediatric neurologists with regard to a number of specific challenges. These include physician-patient relationships that are based on benign paternalism with respect for autonomy and promoting quality of life, practicing evidence-based medicine, and the technological imperative. In addition we discuss the tension between clinical practice and research, relationships between physicians and industry, and the public role of pediatric neurologists to advocate for children with neurological and developmental conditions. We also illustrate some challenges in selected situations such as prenatal counseling (fetal neurology), neonatal encephalopathy, and persistent vegetative state.

[Classical neurology: Adieu! Or: the future of Hungarian neurology, fruitful transformation or preprogrammed death?]

According to our opinion several ideas, trends and aims of the traditional neurology became outworn. (So together with all the romantic beauty and hierarchic relations: Adieu!). The specialisation within the main body of the profession is unavoidable. A new, high quality, cost-benefit sensitive, institutional system should be built up, non essentially on inpatient, but on outpatient basis, supported by a personal and partnership oriented patient/doctor relationship, with multidisciplinatory co-operations and team-work. Education should be also rebuilt accordingly. This analysis of the present situation and recommendations for the future plans was given--since our ages--without any personal interest or attraction. We tried to keep before us only the future of our beloved profession, the preservation of worths, and the exploration of the withdrawing dogmatic views. We invite everybody who is interested in the current questions of our profession to share their opinion with the whole neurological society and take part in open discussion of these important questions.

A perfect storm in interventional pain management: regulated, but unbalanced

Interventional pain management now stands at the crossroads at what is described as "the perfect storm." The confluence of several factors has led to devastating results for interventional pain management. This article seeks to provide a perspective to various issues producing conditions conducive to creating a "perfect storm" such as use and abuse of interventional pain management techniques, and in the same context, use and abuse of various non-interventional techniques. The rapid increase in opioid drug prescribing, costs to health care, large increases in death rates, and random and rampant drug testing, can also lead to increases in health care utilization. Other important aspects that are seldom discussed include medico-legal and ethical perspectives of individual and professional societal opinions and the interpretation of diagnostic accuracy of controlled diagnostic blocks. The aim of this article is to discuss the impact of several factors on interventional pain management and overuse, abuse, waste, and fraud; inappropriate application without evidence-based literature support (sometimes leading to selective use or non-use of randomized or observational studies for proving biased viewpoints - post priori rather than a priori), and issues related to multiple professional societies having their own agendas to push rather than promulgating the science of interventional pain management. This perspective is based on a review of articles published in this issue of Pain Physician, information in the public domain, and other relevant articles. Based on the results of this review, various issues of relevance to modern interventional pain management are discussed and the viewpoints of several experts debated. In conclusion, supporters of interventional pain management disagree on multiple aspects for various reasons while detractors claim that interventional pain management should not exist as a speciality. Issues to be addressed include appropriate use of evidence-based medicine (EBM), overuse, overutilization, and abuse.

Limits to truth-telling: neurologists' communication in conversion disorder

OBJECTIVE

Neurologists face a dilemma when communicating with their conversion disorder patients - whether to be frank, and risk losing the patient's trust, or to disclose less, in the hope of building a therapeutic relationship. This study reports how neurologists in the UK described dealing with this dilemma in their practice.

METHODS

Practicing consultant neurologists from an NHS region were recruited by snowball sampling. Twenty-two of 35 consultants in the region were interviewed in depth, and the interviews qualitatively analysed.

RESULTS

The neurologists were reluctant to disclose conversion disorder as a differential diagnosis until they were certain. They were guided by the receptivity of their patients as to how psychological to make their eventual explanations, but they did not discuss their suspicions about feigning. They described their communications as much easier now than they had seen in training.

CONCLUSION

Neurologists adapt their disclosure to their patients, which facilitates communication, but imposes some limits on truth-telling. In particular, it may sometimes result in a changed diagnosis.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

An optimum strategy for communicating diagnoses will need to balance ethical considerations with demonstrated therapeutic benefit.

[Neuroethics in clinical practice]

In recent years the ability of neuroscience to identify and intervene in mental functions has progressed immensely, which raises several anthropologic and ethical questions. Meanwhile neuroethics arose as a new interdisciplinary field for critical analysis of neuroscientific actions and ethical reflection on the increasing knowledge of the human brain, with regard to society and politics. This article provides a survey of neuroethical implications for clinical practice.

Conference report: the Nour Foundation Georgetown University & Blackfriars Hall,Oxford University Symposium Series Technology, Neuroscience & the Nature of Being: Considerations of Meaning, Morality and Transcendence part I: The Paradox of Neurotechnology 8 May 2009

This reviews the first of a tripartite symposia series dealing with novel neuroscientific technologies, the nature of consciousness and being, and the questions that arise from such interactions. The event took place on May 8 2009, at Georgetown University, and brought together ten leading figures on fields ranging from Neuroscience and Robotics to Philosophy, that commented on their research and provided ethical, moral and practical insight and perspectives into how these technologies can shape the future of neuroscientific and human development, as well as denoting the potential abuses and the best way to proceed about them.

A crisis in chronic pain care: an ethical analysis. Part three: Toward an integrative, multi-disciplinary pain medicine built around the needs of the patient

A number of variables have contributed to the current crisis in chronic pain care and are affected by, and affect, the philosophies and politics that influence the socio-economic climate of the American healthcare system. Thus, we posit that managing the crisis in chronic pain care in the United States is contingent upon the development of a multi-focal healthcare paradigm that more thoroughly enables and fortifies research, its translation (in education and practice), and the implementation of, and support for, both the curative and healing approaches in medicine in general, and pain care specifically. These steps necessitate re-examination, if not revision of the health care system and its economics. The ethical imperative to consider and prudently employ cutting-edge diagnostic and therapeutic technologies in pain medicine is obligatory. However, "supply side prudence" is of little value if "demand side accessibility" is lacking. Revisions to health insurance plans advocated by the in-coming administration seek to create uniformity in basic health care services based upon re-assessment of the clinical effectiveness (versus merely cost) of treatments, including those that are "high tech." These plans attempt to allow every patient a more complete ability to deliberatively work with physicians to access those services and resources that maximize health functioning and goals. But even given these revisions, authentic pain care must take into account the interactive contexts of the painient individual. The biopsychosocial model of chronic pain management may have significant practical and ethical worth in this regard. A system of pain treatment operating from a biopsychosocial perspective necessitates integrative multi-disciplinarity. We propose a tiered, multi-disciplinary paradigm based upon the differing needs of each specific patient. But establishing such a system does not guarantee access, and distribution of these services and resources requires economic support to ensure that capabilities are more broadly available (i.e., supplied), and afforded as needed and wanted (i.e., demanded). Toward this end, we posit the need to focus upon, and more fully integrate 1) education, 2) multi-disciplinary care (including re-vivification of MPCs), 3) policies that allow financial subsidies that afford patients the latitude to access and utilize such expanded resources appropriately to meet identified medical needs, and 4) medico-legal initiatives and statutes that protect and enable patients and physicians. The proposed changes comport with a number of ethical systems in that they support the basic deontic structure of the profession and allow for a richer, more finely grained articulation of clinical and ethical responsibilities within the scope of particular general, specialty, and sub-specialty practices.

[Ethics in neurology from the patient's view point]

Medicine (medical care) is a study and technology backed by the high expertise human beings have created, passed down, and developed for human beings, to save sick people's lives and heal the pain and agony of illness. Because medicine is a specialized technology that is beyond the understanding of common people, medicine without expertise is not beneficial. Furthermore, medicine must essentially be evaluated in the actual field where people live. As long as medical science and medical care continue to be part of the social system, evaluation of medicine requires a social perspective. It is true that today, patients' rights are presented, ethics is pursued, and guidelines are provided. In reality, however, more than a few people are pushed into death without any "right of true self-determination" or "dignity." Particularly, in the field where "ethics of neurology" is required, the most difficult questions, including the decision to discontinue treatment, must be answered and conflicts can occur. The frightening thing is that words intentionally used from the political/economical aspect are penetrating into the general public without them realizing it. In these circumstances where expressions that can affect the content of treatment, such as "death with dignity" and "end-of-life (terminal)", are penetrating into society and being reflected in specific systems, while presenting a seemingly scientific, intellectual, ethical, and/or moral image, how should medical professionals handle the situation?

Neuroimaging and disorders of consciousness: envisioning an ethical research agenda

The application of neuroimaging technology to the study of the injured brain has transformed how neuroscientists understand disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states, and deepened our understanding of mechanisms of recovery. This scientific progress, and its potential clinical translation, provides an opportunity for ethical reflection. It was against this scientific backdrop that we convened a conference of leading investigators in neuroimaging, disorders of consciousness and neuroethics. Our goal was to develop an ethical frame to move these investigative techniques into mature clinical tools. This paper presents the recommendations and analysis of a Working Meeting on Ethics, Neuroimaging and Limited States of Consciousness held at Stanford University during June 2007. It represents an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges posed by the emerging use of neuroimaging technologies to describe and characterize disorders of consciousness.

When the boss turns pusher: a proposal for employee protections in the age of cosmetic neurology

Neurocognitive enhancement, or cosmetic neurology, offers the prospect of improving the learning, memory and attention skills of healthy individuals well beyond the normal human range. Much has been written about the ethics of such enhancement, but policy-makers in the USA, the UK and Europe have been reluctant to legislate in this rapidly developing field. However, the possibility of discrimination by employers and insurers against individuals who choose not to engage in such enhancement is a serious threat worthy of legislative intervention. While lawmakers should not prevent individuals from freely pursuing neurocognitive enhancement, they should act to ensure that such enhancement is not coerced. This paper offers one model for such legislation, based upon a proposed US law, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, to address precisely this particular pitfall of the impending neuroscience revolution.

[Research developments in neurostimulation after 1945: historical and ethical aspects of medical manipulations of the human brain]

For nearly fifteen years, the impact of modern neuroscience has become a central focus of public debate, not just following the Decade of the Brain in the United States. Newly developed options for manipulating the central nervous system (CNS) are not only of primary medical concern but have come to be regarded as extremely questionable in recent bioethical discourse. This article provides an in-depth comparison between modern neuromanipulative approaches from "Deep Brain Stimulation" (DBS) with methods from earlier historical periods. After World War II, electrophysiological stimulation was developed, which changed the functional capacity of the human brain. It is argued that many contemporary debates questioning neuroethical applications are flawed in significant respects: A unique neuroethical position can neither be upheld philosophically nor with regard to consumer-oriented clinical practice. By drawing on individual case examples from the contemporary and recent history of neuroscience, some related problem fields and consequences are mapped out and discussed. They show an increasingly blurred conceptual boundary furnished by the complex relations between clinical research, physiological restitution, and functional enhancement inherent in modern biomedicine.