When a clinical trial of a pharmaceutical fails, participants usually move on by ceasing to take the drug. But it’s not that simple for some people who took part in a trial of a bold, experimental treatment for people with severe depression. The BROADEN trial, which implanted metal electrodes deep in the brain in a region called area 25, failed early on to show a statistically significant effect on depression and was halted after just 90 participants were treated. Yet 44 of those patients want to keep their implants. Last month, researchers at a meeting at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, discussed the ethical issues that such scenarios raise, such as who is responsible for overseeing—and paying for—long-term care when participants want to keep their infants?

中文翻译：

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脑植入试验激发伦理讨论

当药物的临床试验失败时，参与者通常会停止服用该药物而继续前进。但对于一些参加了一项针对严重抑郁症患者的大胆实验性治疗试验的人来说，事情就没有那么简单了。BROADEN 试验将金属电极植入大脑深处的 25 区，但早期未能显示出对抑郁症的统计学显着影响，仅在 90 名参与者接受治疗后就停止了。然而，其中 44 名患者希望保留他们的植入物。上个月，研究人员在马里兰州贝塞斯达美国国立卫生研究院的一次会议上讨论了这种情况引发的伦理问题，例如当参与者想要留住他们的婴儿时，谁负责监督和支付长期护理费用?