Neuromodulation Technologies and the Regulation of Forms of Life: Exploring, Treating, Enhancing

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is one of the most innovative treatments for a range of neurological and psychiatric conditions. As the practice spreads worldwide, this invasive neurosurgical technology has become the subject of major social, scientific, and ethical concerns about its regulation. In this article, I describe its implementation in a French neuroscience ward and the different forms of practice that structure and promote the development and circulation of this neuromodulation technology. I explore how alternative experimental uses of DBS and deviations from its original therapeutic objectives both interfere with and promote its dissemination. At first, it appeared that neuroscientists could use DBS as a powerful tool to create reproducible experimental human models of emotional or behavioral symptoms so as to explore the functions of the human brain in vivo. In parallel, implanted patients influenced the care program by viewing DBS as a potential technology of self-enhancement for a wide range of personal situations. These alternative uses of DBS have challenged its modes of regulation and standardization and have raised new medical, scientific, and moral controversies. These concern not only ethical and methodological norms of medical and scientific practices but also the anthropological tensions raised by the forms of life that are emerging from neuroscience and experimental practices.