Ethics in published brain-computer interface research

Sophisticated signal processing has opened the doors to more research with human subjects than ever before. The increase in the use of human subjects in research comes with a need for increased human subjects protections.

We quantified the presence or absence of ethics language in published reports of brain-computer interface (BCI) studies that involved human subjects and qualitatively characterized ethics statements.

Reports of BCI studies with human subjects that are published in neural engineering and engineering journals are anchored in the rationale of technological improvement. Ethics language is markedly absent, omitted from 31% of studies published in neural engineering journals and 59% of studies in biomedical engineering journals.

As the integration of technological tools with the capacities of the mind deepens, explicit attention to ethical issues will ensure that broad human benefit is embraced and not eclipsed by technological exclusiveness.