About the course:

Different types of neuroethical issues will be discussed during the course. The course focuses both on applied neuroethics, i.e. ethical questions that arise from neuroscientific or neurotechnological advances; and on fundamental neuroethics, i.e. questions concerning how knowledge of the brain’s functional architecture and its evolution can deepen our understanding of human thought, including moral thought and judgment. The course also includes clinical perspectives, e.g. to what extent a patient with a neuro-degenerative disorder suffers from reduced capacity for decision-making, or reduced autonomy, or when a person with dementia can give an informed consent to participate in scientific studies.

Lectures feature prominent researchers in neuroscience and philosophy:

• Jean-Pierre Changeux: “Neuroscience of the arts”



• Stanislas Dehaene: “Human brain mechanisms of subliminal processing and conscious access”



• Etienne Koechlin: “Decision-making, executive control and the prefrontal cortex”



• Hugo Lagercrantz: “The making of the newborn brain: genetic, epigenetic and environmental mechanisms”



• Patricia Kuhl: “The Dawn of the Enlightened Brain – the scientist in the crib”



• Kathinka Evers: “Neuroethics”; “The neural basis of morality”; and “Free will and personal responsibility in the wake of neuroscience”



• Kai Kaila: “In Search for consciousness”



• Dan Larhammar: “The neural basis of religious experience”



• Maria Lindau: "Neuropsychological assessment of dementia"