Neuroethical Issues in Cognitive Enhancement: the Undergraduates’ Point of View

Parents’ Perceptions on the Debated Parenting Practice of Cognitive Enhancement in Healthy Children and Adolescents

First evidence shows that some parents engage in the health-endangering practice of (mis-)using prescription drugs to boost their children’s school performance. But little is known about parental perspectives on this phenomenon. This study aims to better understand parents’ perspectives on the non-medical use of prescription drugs to improve healthy children’s cognitive functioning. We conducted twelve semi-structured face-to-face interviews with a diverse sample of parents in Germany, and applied qualitative content analysis to explore their perspectives on instrumentalizing prescription drugs for improving the performance of healthy children, including their underlying knowledge (gaps), moral evaluations, evaluations of accompanied risks and benefits, opinions on potential motivators, and wishes regarding policy-making. The results show that parents typically believed themselves knowledgeable about such prescription drug (mis-)use, although they were not aware of anyone in their social environment taking them for enhancement. Parents generally considered such behavior to be morally reprehensible, cheating, and similar to doping in sports, and they typically claimed that no situation or occasion could motivate them to administer prescription drugs to their healthy children. Health risks (including side effects or addiction) were a typical expectation of drug use. That doctors should give such drugs to healthy young people was seen as unjustifiable. The results suggest that morality and risk–benefit evaluations of parents play a major role in their decision-making concerning this potentially risky instrumentalization of non-medical drugs. These insights are of distinct importance, especially for future research and further discussions on this topic, such as an evidence-based public dialog and ethics debates.

tES to rehabilitate neurodevelopmental disorders: A study on clinical practitioners' attitudes

Crucial arguments in the debate about the use of transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) as an intervention for children with neurodevelopmental disorders include, besides safety and efficacy issues, neuroethical concerns as well. No agreement has been reached yet in the clinical community about the ethical aspects of stimulating, although not invasively, a developing brain. To investigate ethical concerns about the use of tES in childhood and adolescence, we explored the knowledge and opinions of practitioners (psychologists, pediatricians, child psychiatrists, and rehabilitators) working in the field of rehabilitation of neurodevelopmental disorders (N=106). An online survey was designed to collect information about what practitioners in the neurodevelopmental field think about the therapeutic use of tES in terms of ethical concerns, need for facilitating conditions, openness to alternative treatments, and need for usability. Findings showed that a previous knowledge of tES, the presence of facilitating circumstances, and lower ethical concerns were the stronger predictors of clinical professionals' propensity to use tES for children rehabilitation. The present study is the first to explore the attitudes of clinical professionals toward the therapeutic use of tES in developmental populations, which we claim are useful for furthering the communication directed to the clinical community and its involvement in the discussion about tES-related issues.

The American Public Is Ready to Accept Human-Animal Chimera Research

We report findings from a new survey of US public attitudes toward human-animal chimeric embryo (HACE) research, designed to compare with recently reported Japanese survey data. We find that 59% of the US public can personally accept the process of injecting human induced pluripotent stem cells into genetically modified swine embryos and having human tissues produced in a pig's body transplanted into a human. This is greater acceptance than in Japan, and there is even strong acceptance among those with strong religious affiliations and who self-identify as conservatives. We argue that strong public support for HACE research, as well as the emerging literature suggesting that humanization of research animals is very unlikely, should compel the NIH to lift its current moratorium on HACE research.