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Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Brain-Implants Using Nano-Scale Materials and Techniques

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Abstract

Nanotechnology is an important platform technology which will add new features like improved biocompatibility, smaller size, and more sophisticated electronics to neuro-implants improving their therapeutic potential. Especially in view of possible advantages for patients, research and development of nanotechnologically improved neuro implants is a moral obligation. However, the development of brain implants by itself touches many ethical, social and legal issues, which also apply in a specific way to devices enabled or improved by nanotechnology. For researchers developing nanotechnology such issues are rather distant from their daily work in the lab, but as soon as they use their materials or devices in medical applications such as therapy of brain diseases they have to be aware of and deal with them. This paper is intended to raise sensitivity for the ethical, legal and social aspects (ELSA) involved in applying nanotechnology in brain implants or other devices by highlighting the short term problems of testing and clinical trials within the existing regulatory frameworks (A), the short and medium-term questions of risks in the application of the devices (B) and the long-term perspectives related to problems of enhancement (C). To identify and address such issues properly nanotechnologists should involve ethical, legal and social experts and regulatory bodies in their research as early as possible. This will help to remove pressure from regulatory bodies, to settle public concern and to prevent non-acceptable developments for the benefit of the patients.

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Notes

  1. Compare for instance the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, Preamble and Art.3 [4].

  2. We are discussing here the regulations on the marketing of both kind of products; when a drug or a device has been introduced on the market and it turns out to be unsafe, the manufacturer is in both cases liable for physical injury caused by the product; this product liability is stricter than liability based on negligence.

  3. Similar questions of personality changes have been discussed regarding brain-tissue transplantation. Quante [16] cf. also Gharabaghi, and Tatagiba [11].

  4. Another, long-term issue concerns the question whether the self-understanding and self-feeling within a partly mechanised and robotised body leads to an estrangement of the traditional human self understanding. See Bruce [3] and Siep [20].

  5. For general problems of enhancement cf. E. Parens [14] Fuchs [10] Siep [23].

  6. For a discussion of the transhumanist arguments see Siep [22].

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Acknowledgements

This paper is in large parts the result of intensive discussions between members of the ELSA Board and Scientists of the European Network of Excellence Nano2Life.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INSERM, Grenoble, France

    Francois Berger

  2. Department of Social Medicine, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Sjef Gevers

  3. Philosophisches Seminar, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, Germany

    Ludwig Siep

  4. Gesellschaft für Bioanalytik Münster e.V., Mendelstr. 11, 48149, Münster, Germany

    Klaus-Michael Weltring

Authors
  1. Francois Berger
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  2. Sjef Gevers
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  3. Ludwig Siep
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  4. Klaus-Michael Weltring
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Correspondence to Klaus-Michael Weltring.

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Berger, F., Gevers, S., Siep, L. et al. Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Brain-Implants Using Nano-Scale Materials and Techniques. Nanoethics 2, 241–249 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-008-0044-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-008-0044-9

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