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- Title
CEREBRAL ORGANOIDS AND THE THRESHOLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
- Authors
CHESHIRE, WILLIAM P.
- Abstract
Cerebral organoids--tiny, primitive, brain-like structures derived from human stem cells--represent a new paradigm for neuroscience. These clusters of neurons are living models for understanding brain diseases at the molecular level without placing human subjects at risk. Some believe they may be a pivotal step toward the elusive goal of repairing injured brains and spinal cords. Recent advances in organoid science have raised ethical questions regarding how this innovative research should be guided and whether limits should be placed. Until recently, it was thought that cerebral organoids lack the intrinsic potential to develop self-awareness, the capacity to feel pain or suffer, or the ability to interact with the external environment. Now we are told that the possible development eventually of such capacities can no longer be excluded, given the trajectory of some lines of current research that seek to generate cerebral organoids that mimic as closely as possible the structure and function of the mature human brain. Whether maximizing cerebral organoids' scientific utility would inevitably cross the moral boundary of creating conscious entities is difficult to forecast. How to think about sentient cerebral organoids is a question wrapped in a quandary entangled within a conundrum.
- Subjects
ORGANOIDS; HUMAN stem cells; CONSCIOUSNESS; BRAIN diseases; SPINAL cord
- Publication
Ethics & Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics, 2020, Vol 36, Issue 1, p27
- ISSN
0266-688X
- Publication type
Article