Neuroscientists often face ethical challenges—including making sure research participants are treated with respect, safeguarding brain specimens and data and ensuring that as many people as possible benefit from research. And when researchers do not fully consider the potential ethical ramifications of their work, it can lead to harmful consequences.
In one high-profile example The New York Times covered in January, a team of fringe researchers misused data and results from the Adolescent Brain Cognition Development (ABCD) Study to support the claim that Black people are not as intelligent as white people—even though the differences in academic performance seen in the data are well explained by discrimination and limited access to resources. Those misinterpreted results might fuel inflammatory political rhetoric. More ethics engagement could have helped the ABCD team present data on how social factors impact cognitive development, in ways that better protect study participants.
The ethics issues that arise in neuroscience labs are usually novel, unresolved and understudied. Many researchers have relatively limited resources for taking on ethical challenges on their own. Neuroscience, however, is a team sport—with experts from distinct fields working together on shared projects. Most geneticists cannot do the work of a computer scientist, or vice versa. And neither could do the work of an ethicist without considerable training. It makes sense to integrate ethicists onto research teams. We call these embedded ethicists, and every neuroscience lab should have one.
Over the past 10 years, I have been embedded in research labs of National Institutes of Health-funded and National Science Foundation-funded researchers working on an array of projects, such as developing brain-computer interfaces and brain cell maps for the BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network. I’ve also collaborated and trained ethicists working across the brain sciences. I have seen firsthand the transformative benefits of embedded ethics.
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n 2014, I became one of a handful of humanities scholars embedded within research teams at the National Science Foundation’s Center for Neurotechnology at the University of Washington. My role at the center was to anticipate ethics issues and assess the potential impact of neurotechnologies on people with disabilities and humanity more broadly. Along with my colleagues, I conducted interviews with researchers, published articles, led ethics workshops and held outreach events, helping to provide researchers with a better understanding of their participants. In a project on adaptive deep brain stimulation for people with essential tremor, for example, I interviewed participants to understand their hopes and worries about how the study would influence their everyday lives.Ethicists are also able to provide novel and impactful perspectives that contribute to how basic neuroscience research is done. For instance, a neuropathologist and a neurobiologist reached out to me to brainstorm how best to recruit brain donors in end-of-life care. That short conversation was the catalyst for building ethics engagement into three BRAIN Initiative projects; we created a neuroethics working group, revised donor recruitment materials and refined the donor selection process to prevent recruiter bias.
There are, of course, challenges to overcome on the part of both the embedded ethicist and their science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) colleague hosts. The language and conventions of STEM investigators are different from those of humanists—philosophers, ethicists and other humanities scholars—so collaborations often require ongoing education. Grant funding for ethics projects is limited and competitive. One solution is to write ethics engagement projects into STEM grants from the start. Another solution is to make use of existing funding for early STEM outreach to bring humanists in to lead ethics training for STEM trainees. Many of the difficult logistical barriers to embedding an ethicist can be overcome through creative problem-solving, the building of institutional knowledge, and the good graces of administrative staff. Many of the deeper cultural problems that arise can be resolved through patience, understanding and respectful dialogue.
Because it is difficult to convey what successful ethics engagement looks like, if it is supported through a grant, clear metrics of success are vital. The standard products of a collaboration—such as papers co-authored with ethicists, presentations at conferences, public lectures, co-mentorship of students, and guest lectures in courses—can be helpful milestones. However, none of these capture the cultural shift that happens with the most successful engagements. Many projects overcome this challenge by spotlighting stories of embedded ethics engagement’s impact on the lab, research methodology and research products.
If you’re a neuroscientist who wants to embed ethics in your research, reaching out to humanists in your institution or nearby institutions is a good place to start. Be open to attending talks on adjacent topics, and invite your humanist colleagues to events they may not have heard of. One conversation between the right people can turn into a deep, long-term partnership.
Working with an ethicist on grant proposals, co-authored papers and conference presentations are all great shared projects, but don’t forget opportunities for shared teaching or community outreach. For example, in 2016, neuroscientist Eric Chudler introduced philosopher and neuroethics researcher Laura Specker Sullivan to the “Science for Monks” initiative, a program that connects scientists with Tibetan monks. Chudler had been part of the program since 2011, and when he got Specker Sullivan to join, she developed a class on debates in neuroethics to complement Chudler’s neuroscience course. Sometimes, working together to create an enriching learning experience is the goal.
Finally, consider working with organizations that promote ethics engagement, such as the International Neuroethics Society and the Dana Foundation. These organizations are a continuous catalyst for new collaborations.
