From Therapy to Enhancement: Ethical and Legal Issues About Neurotechnologies in the EU Framework of Human Rights

Neurotechnologies represent a new frontier in effectively treating diseases and disorders that affect the human brain. Moreover, they are already used outside the medical field for enhancing purposes, amongst others. The use of these technologies is as promising as complex. In the medical field, issues concern different aspects: unwanted relevant side-effects, access to all patients, research funding and publication of results, devices ethically designed by default, privacy issues etc. Outside the medical field, there is an increasing marketing of non-invasive neurotechnologies directly to consumers for enhancing purposes. This use lacks a minimum basic consensus at the ethical level and has not a precise legal foundation in the European system. Therefore, it raises specific ethical and legal concerns that force a reflection on how to protect users from manipulation, abuses, and misuses. The current essay will discuss both ethical and legal issues concerning medical and non-medical applications of neurotechnology framing the discussion within the European value-based vision on technological innovation where fundamental freedoms and rights represent the common shared standards of social coexistence.