The Ethics of Neural Frontiers

Imagine a world where we are freed from the limits of our minds. Advances in neuroscience and technology are bringing once-distant visions, like enhanced sensory experiences and direct brain-computer connections, closer to reality.

Yet, ethical questions rise as we progress toward this new world of neural hacking. How far should we be willing to go when studying the brain? What ethical challenges are scientists navigating as they venture into new territory? What safeguards are in place to protect both science and our society? And ultimately, just because we can, does that mean we should?

Simons Society Junior Fellow Beatrice Barra is a neuroscientist at New York University’s Neuroscience Institute. As part of her research on sensory processing, Barra studies how brain-machine interfaces might one day restore sensations and hopes to use her findings to help create better neuroprosthetic devices in the future.

Neuroscientist Karen Rommelfanger is the program director of Emory University’s Neuroethics Program. With expertise in brain-machine interfaces and cognitive enhancement, Rommelfanger explores how emerging neurotechnologies challenge our definitions of health, identity and ethics, guiding critical discussions on the societal impact of these advancements.

Join us as Barra and Rommelfanger sit down for a conversation with The Transmitter Editor-in-Chief Ivan Oransky to examine the crossroads of ethics and science involved in hacking the brain. Their discussion will invite us to reconsider the boundaries of our minds.

About the Speakers:

Barra is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dmitry Rinberg at New York University’s Neuroscience Institute. She received her M.Sc. in biomedical engineering from Politecnico di Milano in Italy and her Ph.D. in medical sciences from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. During her doctoral studies under the supervision of Marco Capogrosso, she focused on developing a spinal cord stimulation protocol that successfully restored arm and hand movement in nonhuman primates with cervical spinal cord injury. During her Ph.D., she was awarded a Swiss National Science Foundation fellowship to spend 18 months at the University of Pittsburgh, where she developed spinal cord stimulation protocols to restore naturalistic tactile sensation in subjects with sensory impairments. While studying how stimulation of the sensory system can restore sensation, she developed a particular interest in the neural encoding of sensory information, and she is now focusing her postdoctoral research on the neural encoding of sensation intensity. Specifically, she aims to understand how the mouse olfactory bulb encodes the intensity of olfactory information in the early stages of sensory processing.

Rommelfanger is a neurotech ethicist and strategist. She founded and directs the Institute of Neuroethics, the first think tank dedicated to neuroethics. She works across sectors to promote trusted neuroscience. She pioneered neuroethics-by-design approaches and launched the first neuroethics consultancy, Ningen Neuroethics Co-Lab. Her early career as a biomedical neuroscience researcher organically evolved into neuroethics research. Her work explores how neuroscience challenges definitions of health across cultures and the ensuing societal implications of neurotechnology deployment. She maintains a professorship in neurology and psychiatry at Emory University, has published extensively, and has given more than 150 talks worldwide. A recognized global leader in neuroethics, she has collaborated with and advised organizations such as the Council of Europe, DARPA, OECD and the World Economic Forum.