Ethical implications of BRAIN 2.0: Beyond bioethics, beyond borders

A central goal of the US BRAIN Initiative is to elucidate fundamental brain function at the level of neural circuits by “identifying and characterizing the component cells, defining their synaptic connections with one another, [and] observing their dynamic patterns of activity as the circuit functions in vivo during behavior” (BRAIN 2025 Report 2014). While an important ultimate goal of the Initiative is to treat and cure disease (BRAIN Initiative 2.0 2019), it is recognized that understanding healthy brain function is a key step towards to doing so. This ambitious goal is shared by similar neuroscience initiatives across the globe. For example, the China Brain Project seeks to understand “how specific neural circuits perform their signal processing functions during cognitive processes and behaviors, [which] requires detailed information on the architecture of neural circuits at single-cell resolution and on the spatiotemporal pattern of neuronal activity” (Poo et al. 2016). These examples illustrate that the global neuroscience community – of researchers publishing in the same journals, attending meetings together and citing each other’s results – is generally in accord about the next big steps in understanding the brain.

However, as we get closer to achieving the overarching goal of these initiatives, profound ethical, legal and social implications will be raised (Koroshetz and Grady 2020). To take just one example, if we truly understood the neural basis of behavior at the level of activity in specific cell types, it is difficult to believe that our current conception of individual responsibility – moral and legal – would survive. To be sure, we are currently far away from achieving this goal in the human brain. But progress in achieving this goal in animal models, and technological developments enabling a transformative understanding of the human brain, are proceeding rapidly.

These sorts of profound implications are not well addressed within a traditional bioethics framework. Instead, they are the purview of the emerging field of neuroethics. Neuroethics is often considered a branch of bioethics, just as neuroscience is often considered a branch of biology, but neither of these classifications is accurate. Much of neuroscience is distinct from biology because the brain is not just another organ: it is central to how we interact with the world, how we reflect upon those interactions, and our very experience of being-in-the-world (Gillett 2008). Achieving a transformative understanding of brain function thus raises a class of questions and ethical issues that can only be addressed by neuroethics. While neuroethics frameworks to address these issues are beginning to be developed, they are at best barely keeping up with our understanding of brain function. Without rapid progress in neuroethics, the field may fall further behind as the pace of discovery accelerates under the next phase of large-scale initiatives (BRAIN Initiative 2.0 2019).

A further challenge is that the fundamental values that will be tested by, and guide how we think about, the ethical issues associated with a transformative understanding of brain function vary widely across cultures. Thus, even in the case of international consensus on scientific discoveries, the implications of those discoveries may be considered divergently by cultures operating within different value systems (Rommelfanger et al. 2018). For example, a society that places a high value on individual rights might respond differently to discoveries that affect how we think about moral responsibility than a society that places a high value on the collective good. The international neuroethics community – led by organizations like the International Neuroethics Society and the Global Neuroethics Summit – has an important role to play in mitigating these differences by ensuring that the implications of scientific advances are considered within a broad framework of acceptable values, towards the goal of benefiting humanity regardless of nationality. By leveraging the existing ties of the international neuroscience community, neuroscientists themselves can play an important part in this effort by helping to bridge the divides that may exist within the international neuroethics community. At the very least, researchers are well positioned to mediate conflicting perceptions about the science itself that are likely to arise. While the data should not be up for dispute, it is clear that the same facts can be perceived differently by motivated reasoners working from different value systems.

As large-scale neuroscience initiatives advance, the international neuroethics community also has an important role to play in addressing questions about research ethics. Although the research community may be united in its goal of advancing scientific discovery, disagreements exist about the ethical and acceptable means to do so. These disagreements were highlighted by the recent debate about the use of primate model systems in the next phase of the US BRAIN Initiative (Johnson 2020; BNS 2020). Without international consensus on this question, a convoluted situation could arise in which primate research is expanded in some countries even while it is discontinued in others. Incorporating the findings from this research into the collective literature would offer de facto approval of the methodology, while excluding the findings – if this would even be possible – would result in a counterproductive rift in the scientific community. Coordination among scientists and ethicists across nation is necessary for achieving consensus, with neuroethicists particularly well-positioned to play a key role in the process.

Neuroethics is playing catch-up with scientific discovery, and could fall even further behind as the next phase of bold neuroscience initiatives begins. To ensure that the benefits of our understanding of fundamental brain function are maximized and justly distributed, and the harms are minimized, the international neuroethics community – including embedded neuroscientists – must develop frameworks beyond those of traditional bioethics to address the challenges ahead.