|Articles|June 8, 2010

Psychiatric Times

  • Psychiatric Times Vol 27 No 6
  • Volume 27
  • Issue 6

Psychiatry in the Era of Neuroethics

Ethical Questions at the Intersection of Neurotechnology and Psychiatry

Picture a metallic arm with spectacular titanium and stainless steel exposing inlayed microchips, boasting over 20 points of movement that closely mimic a human arm.

This is the image that graces the cover of National Geographic’sJanuary 2010 issue, heralding the “bionic age.”1 To be clear, it has taken decades for scientists to accept the term “bionic,” which is the merging of man with machine-once just a figment of fiction writers’ imagination. With astoundingly innovative technology, researchers are harnessing motor cortex brain signals that travel to the stump of an amputee’s limb, where electrode arrays are matched with the residual nerve endings to translate the signal into the human-like mechanical motion of a prosthetic limb.

Internal server error