Neuroethics and Psychiatry: New Collaborations for Emerging Challenges

Abstract

<p>“Better sick than lazy,” wrote one respondent on a survey assessing receptivity to diagnostic brain scans for depression. Mental illness, long the domain of psychiatry, may prove to be the first major medical or scientific area to intrude on the average sense of “intuitive dualism” — the conviction that the mind, which can be judged to be lazy, is treated as distinct from the brain, which may be broken when sick. Widespread information about brain scans and promise of targeted new neurotreatments may bring more untreated mental illness into the clinic and increase treatment compliance, if the allure of anything neuro-based helps biologize mental illness and treatments become more tolerable with fewer side effects. Basic and clinical neuroscience research resulting in new technologies and drugs to manipulate the brain and relieve or cure mental illness will compel this merger of psychiatry, neurology, and neurosurgery. These developments herald an era of great hope for patients who may return to a normal life and for practitioners who will have access to more tools for effective diagnosis and treatment.</p> <h4>ABOUT THE AUTHORS</h4> <p>Emily R. Murphy, PhD, is a Fellow, Center for Law and the Biosciences, Stanford Law School. Judy Illes, PhD, is Professor of Neurology and Canada Research Chair in Neuroethics, National Core for Neuroethics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia.</p> <p>Address correspondence to: Emily R. Murphy, PhD, Center for Law and the Biosciences, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA 94305-8610; or e-mail <a href="mailto:ermurphy@ stanford.edu">ermurphy@ stanford.edu</a>.</p> <p>Dr. Murphy and Dr. Illes have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.</p> <h4>EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES</h4> <ol> <li>Describe the scope of the field of neuroethics.</li> <li>Discuss the ethical implications of newer technologies applied to psychiatry.</li> <li>Review potential ethical issues raised by the prospect of neurochemical manipulation of memory and cognition.</li> </ol>