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  1. The Case Against Organoid Consciousness.Tim Bayne & James Croxford - 2024 - Neuroethics 17 (1):1-15.
    Neural organoids are laboratory-generated entities that replicate certain structural and functional features of the human brain. Most neural organoids are disembodied—completely decoupled from sensory input and motor output. As such, questions about their potential capacity for consciousness are exceptionally difficult to answer. While not disputing the need for caution regarding certain neural organoid types, this paper appeals to two broad constraints on any adequate theory of consciousness—the first involving the dependence of consciousness on embodiment; the second involving the dependence of (...)
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  • The Ethics of Human Brain Organoid Transplantation in Animals.Tsutomu Sawai, Julian Savulescu, Christopher Gyngell & Masanori Kataoka - 2023 - Neuroethics 16 (3):1-15.
    In this paper, we outline how one might conduct a comprehensive ethical evaluation of human brain organoid transplantation in animals. Thus far, ethical concerns regarding this type of research have been assumed to be similar to those associated with other transplants of human cells in animals, and have therefore not received significant attention. The focus has been only on the welfare, moral status, or mental capacities of the host animal. However, the transplantation of human brain organoids introduces several new ethical (...)
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  • The Ethics of Stem Cell-Based Embryo-Like Structures.A. M. Pereira Daoud, W. J. Dondorp, A. L. Bredenoord & G. M. W. R. de Wert - forthcoming - Journal of Bioethical Inquiry:1-30.
    In order to study early human development while avoiding the burdens associated with human embryo research, scientists are redirecting their efforts towards so-called human embryo-like structures (hELS). hELS are created from clusters of human pluripotent stem cells and seem capable of mimicking early human development with increasing accuracy. Notwithstanding, hELS research finds itself at the intersection of historically controversial fields, and the expectation that it might be received as similarly sensitive is prompting proactive law reform in many jurisdictions, including the (...)
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  • Neural Organoids and the Precautionary Principle.Jonathan Birch & Heather Browning - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):56-58.
    Human neural organoid research is advancing rapidly. As Greely notes in the target article, this progress presents an “onrushing ethical dilemma.” We can’t rule out the possibility that suff...
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  • Consciousness in a Rotor? Science and Ethics of Potentially Conscious Human Cerebral Organoids.Federico Zilio & Andrea Lavazza - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 14 (2):178-196.
    Human cerebral organoids are three-dimensional biological cultures grown in the laboratory to mimic as closely as possible the cellular composition, structure, and function of the corresponding organ, the brain. For now, cerebral organoids lack blood vessels and other characteristics of the human brain, but are also capable of having coordinated electrical activity. They have been usefully employed for the study of several diseases and the development of the nervous system in unprecedented ways. Research on human cerebral organoids is proceeding at (...)
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  • Against the Precautionary Approach to Moral Status: The Case of Surrogates for Living Human Brains.Tomasz Żuradzki - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):53-56.
    My paper builds on the conceptual tools from three interrelated philosophical debates that—as I believe—may help structure important if chaotic discussions about surrogates for living human brains and resolve some practical issues related to regulatory matters. In particular, I refer to the discussions about the “moral precautionary principle” in research ethics (Koplin and Wilkinson 2019); about normative uncertainty in ethics (MacAskill, Bykvist, and Ord 2020), and about the inductive risk problem for animal welfare scientists (Birch 2018). I elucidate upon the (...)
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  • Scientific and Ethical Uncertainties in Brain Organoid Research.Arun Sharma, Peter Zuk & Christopher Thomas Scott - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):48-51.
    Hank Greely’s target article, “Human Brain Surrogates Research: The Onrushing Ethical Dilemma” reviews the manifold scientific and ethical questions surrounding models of human brains used i...
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  • Human Brain Surrogates: Models or Distortions?Monika Piotrowska - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):66-68.
    Although neurological disease and mental illness can cause terrible human suffering, strategies for researching their causes and cures are not obvious. Invasive brain research on actual human being...
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  • Human Brain Organoids and Consciousness.Takuya Niikawa, Yoshiyuki Hayashi, Joshua Shepherd & Tsutomu Sawai - 2022 - Neuroethics 15 (1):1-16.
    This article proposes a methodological schema for engaging in a productive discussion of ethical issues regarding human brain organoids, which are three-dimensional cortical neural tissues created using human pluripotent stem cells. Although moral consideration of HBOs significantly involves the possibility that they have consciousness, there is no widely accepted procedure to determine whether HBOs are conscious. Given that this is the case, it has been argued that we should adopt a precautionary principle about consciousness according to which, if we are (...)
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  • Responding to Human Brain Surrogates Research: The Value of Empirical Ethics.Suzanne Metselaar, Jeroen Geurts & Gerben Meynen - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):64-66.
    Greely argues that surrogates for living human brains in vivo might be of tremendous benefit to understanding human brain function—and eventually to curing devastating brain diseases—without...
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  • AJOB-Neuroscience Top Abstract Award Winners from the 2021 International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting.Coates McCall - 2022 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 13 (4):287-306.
    The following abstracts were selected by AJOB-Neuroscience judges as the best submitted to the International Neuroethics Society 2021 Annual Meeting.
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  • Brain Surrogates—Empty or Full Makes the Difference.Jeantine E. Lunshof - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):46-48.
    In his Target Article, Greely examines brain surrogates and the ethical dilemma they pose: …we may make our models so good that they themselves deserve some of the kinds of ethical and legal respec...
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  • Human Brain Organoids: Why There Can Be Moral Concerns If They Grow Up in the Lab and Are Transplanted or Destroyed.Andrea Lavazza & Massimo Reichlin - 2023 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 32 (4):582-596.
    Human brain organoids (HBOs) are three-dimensional biological entities grown in the laboratory in order to recapitulate the structure and functions of the adult human brain. They can be taken to be novel living entities for their specific features and uses. As a contribution to the ongoing discussion on the use of HBOs, the authors identify three sets of reasons for moral concern. The first set of reasons regards the potential emergence of sentience/consciousness in HBOs that would endow them with a (...)
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  • Consciousness and the Ethics of Human Brain Organoid Research.Karola Kreitmair - 2023 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 32 (4):518-528.
    The possibility of consciousness in human brain organoids is sometimes viewed as determinative in terms of the moral status such entities possess, and, in turn, in terms of the research protections such entities are due. This commonsense view aligns with a prominent stance in neurology and neuroscience that consciousness admits of degrees. My paper outlines these views and provides an argument for why this picture of correlating degrees of consciousness with moral status and research protections is mistaken. I then provide (...)
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  • The Moral Relevance of Humanization.Julian J. Koplin - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):59-61.
    Greely’s target article outlines six categories of ethical issues associated with human brain surrogate research. Some of these issues are familiar from other research contexts; others, less...
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  • The Donation of Human Biological Material for Brain Organoid Research: The Problems of Consciousness and Consent.Masanori Kataoka, Christopher Gyngell, Julian Savulescu & Tsutomu Sawai - 2024 - Science and Engineering Ethics 30 (1):1-15.
    Human brain organoids are three-dimensional masses of tissues derived from human stem cells that partially recapitulate the characteristics of the human brain. They have promising applications in many fields, from basic research to applied medicine. However, ethical concerns have been raised regarding the use of human brain organoids. These concerns primarily relate to the possibility that brain organoids may become conscious in the future. This possibility is associated with uncertainties about whether and in what sense brain organoids could have consciousness (...)
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  • Potential Consciousness of Human Cerebral Organoids: on Similarity-Based Views in Precautionary Discourse.Sarah Diner - 2023 - Neuroethics 16 (3):1-8.
    Advances in research on human cerebral organoids (HCOs) call for a critical review of current research policies. A challenge for the evaluation of necessary research regulations lies in the severe uncertainty about future trajectories the currently very rudimentary stages of neural cell cultures might take as the technology progresses. To gain insights into organotypic cultures, ethicists, legal scholars, and neuroscientists rely on resemblances to the human brain. They refer to similarities in structural or functional terms that have been established in (...)
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  • An Afro-Communitarian Relational Approach to Brain Surrogates Research.Luís Cordeiro-Rodrigues & Cornelius Ewuoso - 2021 - Neuroethics 14 (3):561-574.
    Carrying out research on brains is important for medical advances in various diseases. However, such research ought not be carried out on human brains because the benefits do not outweigh the potential risks. A possible alternative is the use of brain surrogates. Nevertheless, some scholars who uphold a threshold account of moral status suggest the possibility that, with technological advances in the near future, more advanced brain surrogates will have very similar features to humans. This may suffice for these having (...)
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  • Sims and Vulnerability: On the Ethics of Creating Emulated Minds.Bartlomiej Chomanski - 2022 - Science and Engineering Ethics 28 (6):1-17.
    It might become possible to build artificial minds with the capacity for experience. This raises a plethora of ethical issues, explored, among others, in the context of whole brain emulations (WBE). In this paper, I will take up the problem of vulnerability – given, for various reasons, less attention in the literature – that the conscious emulations will likely exhibit. Specifically, I will examine the role that vulnerability plays in generating ethical issues that may arise when dealing with WBEs. I (...)
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  • Philosophy is Still Missing from the Human-Mouse Chimera Debate.Benjamin Capps - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):61-63.
    Given the broad coverage of “Human Brain Surrogates Research: The Onrushing Ethical Dilemma,” this commentary focuses on the section “human/nonhuman brain chimeras,” and specifically, the questions...
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  • Regulating Possibly Sentient Human Cerebral Organoids.Heather Browning & Walter Veit - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 14 (2):197-199.
    Due to their contested ethical and legal status, human cerebral organoids (HCOs) have become the subject of one of the most rapidly expanding debates in the recent bioethics literature. There is no...
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  • The Many Moral Matters of Organoid Models: A systematic review of reasons.Andrew J. Barnhart & Kris Dierickx - 2022 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 25 (3):545-560.
    ObjectiveTo present the ethical issues, moral arguments, and reasons found in the ethical literature on organoid models.DesignIn this systematic review of reasons in ethical literature, we selected sources based on predefined criteria: The publication mentions moral reasons or arguments directly relating to the creation and/or use of organoid models in biomedical research; These moral reasons and arguments are significantly addressed, not as mere passing mentions, or comprise a large portion of the body of work; The publication is peer-reviewed and published (...)
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  • Testing the Correlates of Consciousness in Brain Organoids: How Do We Know and What Do We Do?Rachel A. Ankeny & Ernst Wolvetang - 2021 - American Journal of Bioethics 21 (1):51-53.
    What consciousness exactly is remains an unsettled issue among both philosophers and biologists. Three aspects of consciousness are generally recognized: awareness consciousness (through connection...
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