Neuroethics is the area of bioethics that focuses on issues unique or especially relevant to neuroscience. It is a relatively new term that has been used in a variety of more restricted ways referring to: (1) ethical issues associated with neurology (the subfield of medicine focused on disease and injury of the nervous system) (Pontius 1993); (2) ethical issues associated with the technological advances of neuroscience (Farah and Wolpe 2004); and (3) the neurological basis of ethical thought and behavior (Caplan 1983, Roskies 2002). While attention has primarily focused on the potential applications of technological development, all of these topics appropriately fall under the purview of neuroethics.

Neuroscience is that field of the biological sciences that examines the structure and function of the nervous system. It includes all stages of development from initial differentiation of cells that will become part of the nervous system in the developing organism, through senility and brain death. Topics of...