CNE Seminar Series

BIOGRAPHY:

Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz, PhD, JD is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, leads the Brain Bioethics Laboratory in the Department of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is co-director of the Neurotech Justice Accelerator at Mass General Brigham (NJAM), a Dana Center for Neuroscience & Society. Dr. Lázaro-Muñoz combines his background in neuroscience, law, and bioethics to examine the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging biomedical technologies in neuroscience and genomics. His research has been funded by the BRAIN Initiative-NIH, NIMH, NHGRI, and the Dana Foundation.

ABSTRACT:

Implantable neural devices, including brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that generally target cortical regions of the brain and deep brain stimulation (DBS) systems that often target more ventral (deeper) regions of the brain can generally record activity from and stimulate specific brain targets. These devices can help manage symptoms of treatment-resistant conditions (e.g., Parkinson’s, depression) or functional impairments (e.g., acquired blindness, paralysis). This presentation will examine some of the most pressing ethical, social, and policy challenges in the development and translation of these technologies into clinical care with a focus on neurotechnology justice issues.