Correcting the Brain? The Convergence of Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, Psychiatry, and Artificial Intelligence

Stephen Rainey,Yasemin J Erden

doi:10.1007/s11948-020-00240-2

Abstract

The incorporation of neural-based technologies into psychiatry offers novel means to use neural data in patient assessment and clinical diagnosis. However, an over-optimistic technologisation of neuroscientifically-informed psychiatry risks the conflation of technological and psychological norms. Neurotechnologies promise fast, efficient, broad psychiatric insights not readily available through conventional observation of patients. Recording and processing brain signals provides information from ‘beneath the skull’ that can be interpreted as an account of neural processing and that can provide a basis to evaluate general behaviour and functioning. But it ought not to be forgotten that the use of such technologies is part of a human practice of neuroscience informed psychiatry. This paper notes some challenges in the integration of neural technologies into psychiatry and suggests vigilance particularly in respect to normative challenges. In this way, psychiatry can avoid a drift toward reductive technological approaches, while nonetheless benefitting from promising advances in neuroscience and technology.

Highlights

Neurosciences and psychiatry overlap when the identification of anomalous neural activity is mapped to behavioural or cognitive phenomena in the context of assessment or diagnosis of patients
In a scenario where action—as the outcome of reasoning—may be curtailed, and basic behavioural discrimination among stimuli is affected, we suggest that great care is taken in the use of these technologies, as pertains to their use in psychiatry
Psychiatry can be informed by technology so as to provide insights otherwise hard to gain, which can aid in clinical decision support, evidence gathering through data analysis, and broadly in processes of assessing patients (Iniesta et al 2016)

Summary

Introduction

Neurosciences and psychiatry overlap when the identification of anomalous neural activity is mapped to behavioural or cognitive phenomena in the context of assessment or diagnosis of patients. This means in practice that technologies developed for recording neural activity can come to play a role in psychiatry. This could result in a too reductive account of complex human behaviour both in terms of rationality, and action, especially as it relates to the perceptions both of patients and of practitioners.

Results

Conclusion