Neuroethics, Neuroscience and Neurohacking: Legal Foundations of the Medical Experiment on <i>Terra Incognita</i>

Abstract

The results of complex and interdisciplinary research conducted at the intersection of legal and medical sciences allow us to create new points of support for the development of innovative technologies. One of the controversial ways to treat neurological pathology is neurohacking. Experimental intervention in the human brain can not only be of a positive therapeutic nature, but also harm the triad of human—society—state security. The main purpose of the paper is to highlight the latest achievements of neuroscience, focusing on the insufficiency of legal regulation of medical experiment in the Russian Federation. Justification of the need for medical research on the higher nervous system is possible only after a thorough analysis of the clinical situation, taking measures to prevent harm to the health of a particular patient, eliminating the impact on an unspecified group of people, as well as motivating the exclusivity of the task, assessing all legal and biological risks. The paper presents the stages of the origin and development of neuroethics in the country, substantiates the close relationship of neuroscience with the bioethical component, proposes the author’s classification of neurohacking, identifies the legal threats of criminal influence on the human body, and provides an argument for the likelihood of using bioengineering technologies to create bioweapons. The conclusions drawn in the work can be further used in the process of formulating normative legal acts regulating the issues of biomedical experiment and the Provisions on the expert council on bio (neuro) ethics.