I’m very pleased to have had the chance to discuss neuroethics in neuroscience at two great events at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting.

On Friday I participated in a Scientific Short Course on Neural Prosthetics and Brain Machine Interfaces. After a full day of very stimulating presentations on mechanisms, new directions, and clinical/commercial translation for neurotechnology, we held two breakout sessions on neuroethics. In our groups we explored questions of justice, enhancement vs. therapy, data privacy, device security, and ultimately what responsibility neuroscientists and engineers have to address foreseeable applications of their research. I’m so grateful to Adrienne Fairhall and Charles Liu for the invite, and to Adrienne, John Donoghue, Richard Andersen and Zoran Nenadic for co-leading the neuroethics breakouts with me.

On Sunday we held our Neuroethics Social. Khara Ramos and I hosted two brief panels focused on the integration of neuroethics in neuroscience training and careers. Our first panel focused on the individual/trainee perspective with a spectrum of panelists at different career stages: Hale Soloff (grad student at Emory), Maggie Thompson (postdoc at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab) and Gidon Felsen (associate professor at the University of Colorado). Gidon stayed for our second panel from the program/faculty perspective, joined by Gillian Hue (Emory) and Eric Chudler (University of Washington). More important than the panels was the opportunity for discussion and networking–it was invigorating to hear from so many young neuroscientists interested in incorporating ethics in their careers!