The primary goal of these meetings is the development and exchange of ideas concerning the ethical, legal and societal implications of new developments in clinical neuroscience. These include issues arising from functional neuroimaging, behavioral genetics, molecular neurobiology and their applications to understanding normal and abnormal brain function. More specifically, each conference will: (1) bring leading clinical neuroscientists together with experts on bioethics, law and society to identify issues at the intersection of neuroscience and society;(2) organize the knowledge base for each issue, noting what is relevant, what is known and what is not known;(3) foster bidirectional exchange of ideas between researchers and clinicians;(4) disseminate the results of these presentations and exchanges beyond the conference by creating videos of the sessions to post online and by contributing a collaboratively written article on a key issue in clinical neuroethics to the peer-reviewed archival literature. State-of-the-art translational and clinical neuroscience will be paired with analyses of their broader societal impact, for an audience including laboratory and clinical scientists. We anticipate at least half of the audience will be graduate students, fellows and early- career scientists, and will offer these individuals the opportunity for mentoring and poster presentations in addition to other conference activities.
This conference series will focus on the ethical, legal and social implications of recent advances in clinical neuroscience, with the objective of integrating state-of-the-art translational and clinical neuroscience with analyses of their broader societal impact. Awareness of these broader issues is essential for guiding basic and translational research toward the most responsible and beneficial outcomes.
