Neuroethics: An emerging new discipline in the study of brain and cognition

Theoretical, practical, and ethical considerations at the heart of imaging healthy research subjects and cognitively compromised patients are explored and a broad range of relatively unexplored ethical challenges in functional neuroimaging with MR are highlighted.

Abstract

The vision for the special issue in Brain and Cognition is rooted in the need to bring to the foreground the state of scientific knowledge in research and clinical neuroimaging ethics. To this end, the issue highlights a broad range of relatively unexplored ethical challenges in functional neuroimaging with MR, alone or in combination with other neuroimaging modalities, from imaging the central nervous system of the fetus in utero through neural activation patterns associated with cognition and behavior in childhood and in adulthood. Theoretical, practical, and ethical considerations at the heart of imaging healthy research subjects and cognitively compromised patients are explored.