Wednesday, December 14, 2022

 Optogenetics and the Neuroethics

 by. Michelle Sheldrew

 

Optogenetics is a field of study that has gathered much new interest with its hopeful ability to minimize conditioned fear responses. However, as with any new treatment, new boundaries must be established. Neuroscience has many taboos regarding treatments and experimentation due to its history of researchers going beyond what society thinks is ethical. For example, lobotomy was popular brain surgery in the 1930s to treat certain mental disorders (West, 2022). The treatment was done by cutting off part of the frontal lobe, which led to serious side effects that went from seizures to changes in personality (West, 2022). Considering these treatments were used on homosexuals, depressed, and people with schizophrenia, people now find it appalling and are resistant to any treatment when it is invasive. Optogenetics is the ability to control neural activity in the brain using optics (light; (Adamczyk & Zawadzki, 2020). This ability to control neural activity refers to altering memories, a novel method for treating conditioned responses.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and phobia are common anxiety/fear-inducing mental disorders currently affecting many people. During an experiment done by Grella et al. (2022), it was discovered that optogenetics could reduce conditioned fear. This was tested using mice conditioned to be in a cage and shocked. This led to the mice developing a conditioned fear response that would then be treated using optics surgically introduced into their brain. The exact location they have discovered most effective is the dorsal dentate gyrus neurons (Grella et al., 2022). The idea was that a positive, rewarding experience caused by the optics would replace the negative affective state ((Grella et al., 2022). Which in turn is, modifying the memory created by the mice into a positive experience.

In Adamczyk & Zawadzki’s article “The Memory-Modifying Potential of Optogenetics and the Need for Neuroethics,” they argue that since human experimentation has been confirmed and optogenetics has the potential for more than just treating PTSD and phobias that there is a need for Neuroethical boundaries (Adamczyk & Zawadzki, 2020). The issues arising from this article encompass false memories and modification of memory details. As described in the previous experiment, mice had their memories overwritten with a new positive experience. While this benefits many people with PTSD, what are the possibilities of this neuromodulation being used in other aspects? Anyone can go to it if this becomes a new standard treatment for modifying unwanted memories, such as getting a tan from a salon. What could this mean when coming to trials and crimes?

Memory modification has many positive aspects but also introduces new ethical questions. How standard will this method be? Is it going to be a controlled and regulated process? Optogenetics is the future for memory-modifying technologies (MMTs) with the highest chance of success. However, where are the boundaries, and when should we start speaking about Neuroethics?

 

Work Citation

Adamczyk, A. K., & Zawadzki, P. (2020). The Memory-Modifying Potential of Optogenetics and the Need for Neuroethics. NanoEthics, 14(3), 207–225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-020-00377-1

Grella, S. L., Fortin, A. H., Ruesch, E., Bladon, J. H., Reynolds, L. F., Gross, A., Shpokayte, M., Cincotta, C., Zaki, Y., & Ramirez, S. (2022). Reactivating hippocampal-mediated memories during reconsolidation to disrupt fear. Nature Communications13(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32246-8

 

West, M. (2022, August 16). What is a lobotomy? Uses, procedure, and history. Www.medicalnewstoday.com. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-is-a-lobotomy

 

 

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