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Potential ethical problems with human cerebral organoids: Consciousness and moral status of future brains in a dish
Brain Research ( IF 2.9 ) Pub Date : 2020-10-15 , DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2020.147146
Andrea Lavazza 1
Affiliation  

Human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are an in vitro model of early neural development, aimed at modelling and understanding brain development and neurological disorders. In just a few years there has been rapid and considerable progress in the attempt to create a brain model capable of showcasing the characteristics of the human brain. There are still strong limitations to address, including the absence of vascularization which makes it difficult to feed the central layers of the organoid. Nevertheless, some important features of the nervous system have recently been observed in cerebral organoids: they manifest electrical activity (i.e. communication between neurons), are sensitive to light stimulation and are able to connect to a spinal cord by sending impulses that make a muscle contract. Recent data show that cortical organoid network development at ten months resembles some preterm babies EEG patterns. Although cerebral organoids are not close to human brains so far due to their extremely simplified structure, this state of things gives rise to ethical concerns about the creation and destructive experimental use of human cerebral organoids. Particularly, one can wonder whether a human cerebral organoid could develop some degree of consciousness and whether, under certain conditions, it could acquire its own moral status with the related rights. In this article, I discuss the conditions under which HCOs could be granted their own moral status. For this purpose, I consider the hypothesis that HCOs might develop a primitive form of consciousness and investigate the ways in which it could be detected. In light of all this, I finally point out some cautionary measures that could be introduced into research on and with human cerebral organoids.



中文翻译:

人类大脑类器官的潜在伦理问题:未来大脑在培养皿中的意识和道德状态

人脑类器官 (HCO) 是一种体外早期神经发育模型,旨在建模和理解大脑发育和神经系统疾病。在短短几年内,在尝试创建能够展示人脑特征的大脑模型方面取得了迅速而可观的进展。仍然有很大的局限性需要解决,包括缺乏血管化,这使得难以喂养类器官的中央层。然而,最近在大脑类器官中观察到了神经系统的一些重要特征:它们表现出电活动(即神经元之间的交流),对光刺激敏感,并且能够通过发送使肌肉收缩的脉冲连接到脊髓. 最近的数据显示,十个月时皮质类器官网络的发育类似于一些早产儿的脑电图模式。尽管迄今为止,大脑类器官由于其极其简化的结构而与人类大脑并不接近,但这种状态引起了对人类大脑类器官的创造和破坏性实验使用的伦理担忧。尤其是,人类大脑类器官是否可以发展出某种程度的意识,以及在特定条件下是否可以获得具有相关权利的道德地位。在本文中,我将讨论在哪些条件下可以授予 HCO 自己的道德地位。为此,我考虑了 HCO 可能发展出一种原始意识形式的假设,并研究了可以检测到它的方式。鉴于这一切,

更新日期:2020-10-30
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