Bioethi­cists call for over­sight of poor­ly reg­u­lat­ed, con­sumer-grade neu­rotech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts (Med­ical News):

“The mar­ket­ing of direct-to-con­sumer “neu­rotech­nolo­gies” can be entic­ing: apps that diag­nose a men­tal state, and brain devices that improve cog­ni­tion or “read” one’s emo­tion­al state. How­ev­er, many of these increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar prod­ucts aren’t ful­ly sup­port­ed by sci­ence and have lit­tle to no reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight, which pos­es Read the rest of this entry »

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The Pentagon’s Push to Pro­gram Sol­diers’ Brains (The Atlantic):

“…darpa offi­cials refer to the poten­tial con­se­quences of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy by invok­ing the acronym elsi, a term of art devised for the Human Genome Project. It stands for “eth­i­cal, legal, social impli­ca­tions.” The man who led the dis­cus­sion on ethics among the research teams Read the rest of this entry »

Image: Ars Elec­tron­i­ca | CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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From Health­care to War­fare: How to Reg­u­late Brain Tech­nol­o­gy (Uni­ver­si­ty of Basel press release):

“The term “dual-use” refers to tech­nol­o­gy that can be used for both ben­e­fi­cial (i.e., med­ical) and harm­ful (i.e., mil­i­tary of ter­ror­is­tic) aims. Until recent­ly, most dual-use tech­nol­o­gy emerged espe­cial­ly in virol­o­gy and bac­te­ri­ol­o­gy. In the last years, how­ev­er, mil­i­tary-fund­ed research has entered the domain of neu­ro­science and neu­rotech­nol­o­gy.

This has result­ed in a rapid growth in brain tech­nol­o­gy pro­to­types aimed at Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Brent Williams is wear­ing a home­made tDCS device while his wife Madge is sport­ing a com­mer­cial mod­el. Pho­to by Kevin Liles/kevindliles.com

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At the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit last month, researcher and sci­ence writer Dr. Anna Wexler dis­cussed some fas­ci­nat­ing insights from her sur­vey of 339 home (or “do-it-your­self”) users of tDCS (tran­scra­nial direct cur­rent stim­u­la­tion) devices.

The sur­vey results have just been pub­lished in the Jour­nal of Cog­ni­tive Enhance­ment (details below), and pro­vide a use­ful win­dow into who pur­chas­es tDCS devices and why, how they use them and what results they see. Read the rest of this entry »

How will the Clin­i­cians, Patients and Con­sumers of the Future ensure appro­pri­ate use of brain enhance­ment meth­ods encom­pass­ing lifestyle, sup­ple­ments, brain train­ing, med­i­ta­tion, bio/ neu­ro­feed­back, tDCS and more? (record­ing requires reg­is­tra­tion; view slid­edeck above or Here)

• Dr. Eddie Mar­tuc­ci, Co-Founder and CEO of Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs
• Dr. Anna Wexler, sci­ence writer, film­mak­er and post­doc fel­low at the Depart­ment of Med­ical Ethics and Health Pol­i­cy at UPenn’s Perel­man School of Med­i­cine
• Dr. Olivi­er Oul­li­er, Pres­i­dent of EMOTIV 
• Dr. Peter Rein­er, Co-Founder of the Nation­al Core for Neu­roethics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia
• Chaired by: Dr. Ali­son Fen­ney, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Indus­try Orga­ni­za­tion (NIO)

Slid­edeck above sup­port­ed ses­sion held dur­ing the 2017 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Brain Health & Enhance­ment in the Dig­i­tal Age (Decem­ber 5–7th).