Research on the mentally incompetent
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 27, 2026

SECONDs Administration Guidelines: A Fast Tool to Assess Consciousness in Brain-injured Patients
Published on: February 6, 2021
1Centre for Psychiatric Neurosciences, Department of Adult Psychiatry, Lausanne University, Switzerland. michel.cuenod@inst.hospvd.ch
Abstract:
The specific problems of consent for the mentally incompetent are reviewed. Scientific research is essential to test the validity of present treatments and to develop new ones. The respective roles of the physician and the researcher have to be clearly defined. The vulnerability of psychiatric patients has to be taken into consideration in such a way that some research can be conducted. It is emphasised that the ethical restrictions for research, although highly justified and necessary, are in part responsible for the relatively slow progress in the application of modern neurosciences to psychiatric diseases.
Related Concept Videos
Psychosurgery
Historical Development of Psychosurgery
In the 1930s, Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz introduced a surgical procedure designed...
Intellectual Disability
The Stanford Prison Experiment
Ethics in Research
Eyewitness Memory
One such error is memory distortion, which occurs because human memory does not function like a...
False Memories
One primary source of false memories is misattribution, where individuals incorrectly associate external information with...

