Neurotechnology will be able to read and manipulate the brain in 20 years ⎮ Neuroscientists warn of the risk of violation of fundamental rights ⎮ Call for action in the international arena

"I don't feel like I wear technology. I don't feel like I wear technology. I feel like I am technology. This is how Neil Harbisson expressed a decade ago, recognized as humanity's first cyborg, his relationship with his sensor implanted in a bone in his head. He was born with a vision defect that did not allow him to appreciate colors and decided to correct this through an antenna implanted in his head through which he can receive auditory frequencies of the colors of the visible spectrum in the environment, in addition to infrared and ultraviolet. He can also accept images and telephone calls.

He was one of the first to follow a current trend called biohacking. Followers of this philosophy do not hesitate to use and implant technology in their bodies that allows them to perceive the environment in an enhanced way. For example, some people have implanted chips to measure their vital signs, as a payment method, or to identify themselves. According to ICREA professor Maria Victoria Sanchez-Vives, in the future, sooner than we think, we will be wearing wearables integrated into our clothes and our bodies. It looks set to be the next big revolution in consumer electronics. And some of these instruments will be integrated into the brain. Maybe in this way, we will be pushed to cross the boundaries of the current human being. Part of this technology will be aimed at increasing our capabilities, leading to the emergence of new treatments for brain diseases, and the establishment of a new relationship between people and machines through the so-called brain-computer interfaces (BCI).

Derived from neuroscience research and the development of machines capable of decoding and interacting with the brain, neurotechnology looks promising in many ways. It is not surprising that the private sector, such as the Neurolink company founded by tycoon Elon Musk, has already taken an interest in this technology, whatever its motivations beyond generating wealth. But everything has its toll. There are ethical questions arising from this process, with their respective implications at various levels in society, which call into question what makes us human. They also raise the question of what we humans want to be like in the future.

The potential of neurotechnology

To study how the brain works, it is necessary to decode its activity. Neuroscientists do it to measure it and find out what messages all those neurons send. They work in a coordinated way to generate the biological processes that allow us to advance in life, such as perceptive processes, learning, or decision-making. In the same way, scientists are also trying to figure out how our minds are built, with more than 86,000 million neurons and corresponding connections. They are trying to answer a big question: who we humans are, which has guided humanity for millennia and from many fields, such as sociology, philosophy, and science. The other goal of neuroscience has traditionally been to understand the brain to try to fix situations in which it does not work well. This means the development of technology derived from this great effort to understand the brain and to modify it, a fact that will transform our lives in the near future.

An example of this is the case of DBS - deep brain stimulation - which consists of small electrodes implanted in some severe Parkinson's disease patients. These electrodes are placed in deep regions of the brain and help to significantly improve their symptoms, related to the known tremors of the disease. Another example of the use of neurotechnology is even more impressive: in 2016, with the guide of Dr. Robert Graunt, Nathan Copeland -who became quadriplegic after an accident- could regain the sense of touch using electrodes implanted in his cerebral cortex and a BCI system. It was a game-changing result that was a breakthrough in neuroscience with great applicability to people. Experiments like this show that the relationship between people and machines is changing. In the future decades, we will be progressively and more intimately linked to them, which shows promise in alleviating the emotional pain of suffering from a brain disease, or having someone close that does.

Manipulating brain activity

Brain activity can already be manipulated in humans, as scientists do in animals. For example, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) or direct current transcranial stimulation (tDCS) are already being tested to mitigate symptoms of diseases such as depression or schizophrenia. Without reaching the field of pathology, there are also cases in which two human brains have been connected remotely, through BCI systems.

In 2014, the journal PLoS ONE published a paper led by Giulio Ruffini, from StarLab, in Barcelona. In this experiment, a person from India sent a salutation - a hello - which another person in Germany received. They were 7700 kilometers apart. He then sent him a ciao to say goodbye. It was a proof of concept representing the beginnings of communication between brains at a distance, which we could understand as induced telepathy. The scientists achieved this by encoding the message through binary code: the sender thought zeros and ones for each letter of the word hello in binary code: when he sent a one, this stimulated the cerebral cortex of the receiver and created a flash in his field of vision, who was blindfolded. Thus, for 30 seconds, they managed to transmit the message. And this is not the only case of long-distance communication between brains if we look into scientific publications.

 

This raises the following question -among others-: if we can manipulate the brain - and in the coming years the rise of these technologies will be vast - where will fall the capacity to decide for oneself, or to feel oneself? This is why an international group of experts, including renowned neuroscientists, became concerned about the issue and coined the concept of neurorights. As María Refojos points out in an article in the February 2020 issue of El Periódico, "Does it make sense to champion neuroscience and neuro-rights at the same time?" Elisa Moreu, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Zaragoza, acknowledged that "it seems contradiction" but instead highlighted the underlying message: "It indicates two things: first, we are facing a real risk and not a potential one. And second, neuroscientists are human beings are, above all, who are very aware of the ethical implications of their advances".

Neurorights

We should prevent technology from malicious use. We know from the history of science that humans can use discovery in different ways. Take, for example, the case of nuclear power, which led to the creation of plants to create energy and also to generate weapons capable of wiping out cities of more than 350,000 inhabitants, such as Hiroshima.

The group of experts expressed their concern regarding the ethical dilemma that neurotechnology represents in protecting people themselves. Within the group of experts are renowned neuroscientists such as Rafael Yuste, Professor of Biological Sciences and Neuroscience at Columbia University, and leading figures in law and sociology, among other fields. Rafael Yuste was the creator and promoter of the BRAIN project, an international initiative with the support of President Barack Obama's administration, which aims to understand the functioning and mechanisms of the brain. Now, he warns of the possible infringement of rights that may entail the neurotechnology development. That is why he coined the concept of neuro-rights.

As Yuste points out, the neurorights are those that derive from the development of neurotechnology. Some of those have to do with the ones already included in the UN Charter of Human Rights. Others had not been thought about before. In December 2021, the Areces Foundation invited two experts to discuss this topic with Rafael Yuste: Tomás de la Quadra-Salcedo, former Minister of Justice and Emeritus Professor of Administrative Law at the Carlos III University of Madrid. María Emilia Casas, from the Social Sciences Council of the Ramón Areces Foundation, acted as moderator. In this debate, Yuste explained that neuro-rights have to do with the right to individual dignity, already included in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights. But which are these neurorights?

1. Right to personal identity. This right has to deal with the self, the consciousness of oneself, and one's personality. In a few years, neurotechnology will be able to decipher and manipulate the activity of our brains. That means it could be possible to alter our personality, either due to treatments for diseases that may arise or by a will to manipulate a person. The concept of the current human being could also be altered, since these technologies will allow, for example, a part of us can exist outside our body, in another technological or digital support, or another place.

2. Right to free will. This is related to the freedom of a person to make decisions. Let us think that it will be possible to instill in the brain a decision or idea externally and that we will perceive it as own, without realizing that it comes from outside. This is already done today in animals, and will soon transcend to human beings.

3. Right to mental privacy. This derives from the same right to privacy. Information could be collected from an individual without consent. This right would thus protect any commercial transaction linked to data extracted from our brains.

4. Right to equal access to neurocognitive enhancement. Neurotechnologies will make it possible to enhance the brain's capacities to take them beyond the limits we know today. This could generate a sort of 'evolution' of the human species. This raises questions such as what kind of human beings we want to be in the future. Neurotechnology should be equally accessible to the entire human species since there is a risk of generating first-class human beings - those neurocognitively enhanced - and second-class ones.

5. Right to protection against biases derived from algorithms. Artificial intelligence linked to neurotechnology developed hand in hand, and the knowledge of neuroscience can generate distinctions and discriminations based on ethnicity, skin color, sex, religion, gender, opinion, socioeconomic status, place of birth, or disease. 

Work done and future perspectives

The group of experts concerned about this issue proposes using international structures and treaties as tools with which to preserve these neurorights, derived from the fundamental right to personal dignity. According to Rafael Yuste, acting as spokesman, in ten or twenty years, neurotechnology will be developed enough to read and manipulate the brain. Yuste emphasizes that the conclusion reached by the group of experts was to adapt and update treaties, such as the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, or create new ones, to ensure their protection. 

"This is a problem of freedom and the loss of consciousness of losing freedom", says de la Quadra-Salcedo.

Initiatives such as the one of Chile, which included these rights in their Constitution in 2019, or that of Spain, which last July 2021 presented the Charter of Digital Rights, are pioneers. Maria Refojos also notes in her article that "the European Union is taking important steps. Also in 2019, the creation of an ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence was announced, and the feasibility of a legal framework on transparency, accountability, or security related to technological progress is being explored from the European Council prism on human rights, democracy, and the rule of law." 

We want to take advantage of advances in neuroscience and neurotechnology to see how our lives improve. It would also be good if we wanted to be better human beings. But we will have to see how much better we are going to be, and whether this involves some perverse use that could harm our existence.

#neurorights #neuroscience #sciencedissemination #rights #neurotechnology

To know more:

Debate Fundación Areces | ‘Los Neuroderechos’ | Diciembre 2021 (YouTube)

Rafel Yuste | Neuroderechos y la privacidad mental | Congreso Futuro 2019 (YouTube)

www.neurorightsfoundation.org