Brains in a dish pose ethical problems

 

H/t Bioedge 

A recent feature in Nature opens with the following sentence: “In Alysson Muotri’s laboratory, hundreds of miniature human brains, the size of sesame seeds, float in Petri dishes, sparking with electrical activity.”

Dr Muotri, a Brazilian researcher working at the University of California, San Diego, is investigating what makes us uniquely human. The obvious answer is the brain, so he is studying it from an evolutionary and developmental perspective and differentiating stem cells to recreate "brain organoids" in his lab.

His research is quite innovative. For instance, he has compared the DNA of Neanderthals (taken from the fossil record and DNA samples from bones) with our DNA. This could give clues about why Neanderthal social, cultural and technological development was more limited and why they became extinct. This might lead to insights into mental health.

However, what his website blurb skates over is the difficult ethical questions arising from creating brain organoids. Nature points out that some scientists and ethicists argue that some experiments with organoids should not be allowed.

It appears that most researchers believe that it would be unethical to create organoids which have some degree of consciousness – disembodied brains floating in a petri dish. However, there’s very little agreement about what consciousness is. Philosophers have clashed over this for centuries; neuroscientists have been no more fortunate in reaching a conclusion. In the meantime, researchers like Muotri are forging ahead. He believes that he might need to create consciousness as part of his research.

In his view, brain organoid research offers no special difficulties. “We work with animal models that are conscious and there are no problems,” Muotri told Nature. “We need to move forward and if it turns out they become conscious, to be honest I don’t see it as a big deal.”

This horrified Wesley J. Smith, bioethics writer at National Review: “That crass attitude illustrates the huge peril biotech could pose to human decency. As the great moral philosopher Leon Kass once wrote, ‘shallow are the souls that have forgotten how to shudder.’”

Jeremy Bentham and social distancing

H/t bioedge

Since utilitarianism is a frequent topic on BioEdge, readers will no doubt be interested in what its founder, Jeremy Bentham, has to say about the Covid-19 pandemic. Not too much, actually, since he passed away in 1832.

But at the moment what remains of him is promoting social distancing at University College London where his body has been preserved as an auto-icon at the entrance to the UCL student centre. The head is a wax effigy (the real head, now mummified, is stored elsewhere).

Pranksters recently fitted it with a mask and posted a photo on Twitter. This provoked a range of responses, most of them complaining that it was disrespectful to ridicule human remains: 

• This is stupid and disrespectful.
• I believe being dead is grounds for a mask exemption. He is most unlikely to be emitting any aerosols and his all-encapsulating display case serves in lieu of a visor. Also, notwithstanding the bizarre nature of his exhibition as an auto-icon, I think this is a tad disrespectful.
• Social distancing like a pro - the greatest good for the greatest number.

However, it was Bentham’s wish that his body be put on display. The auto-icon was created in accordance with his last will and testament, which specifies that it should be exhibited in “an appropriate box or case”. It seems that he wanted to participate in UCL activities, which nowadays include mask-wearing:

“If it should so happen that my personal friends and other disciples should be disposed to meet together on some day or days of the year for the purpose of commemorating the founder of the greatest happiness system of morals and legislation my executor will from time to time cause to be conveyed to the room in which they meet the said box or case with the contents therein to be stationed in such part of the room as to the assembled company shall seem meet.”

Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge