Faculty Bibliography

Despite novel medications and other therapeutic strategies, addiction to psychotropic substances remains one of the most serious public health problems worldwide. In this review, beginning with an introduction of deep brain stimulation (DBS), we highlight the importance of the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in the context of the reward circuitry and addictive behavior. We will provide a short historic overview of other neurosurgical approaches to treat addiction and describe the experimental and preclinical data on DBS in addiction. Finally, we call attention to key ethical issues related to using DBS to treat addiction that are important for future research and the design of clinical trials.

Caplan talks about Ariel Sharon's brain activity. Sharon was the eleventh prime minister of Israel, serving from 2001 to 2006. He has been diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state since suffering first a minor stroke and then another massive one on Jan 4, 2006. A respirator and a feeding tube have kept him alive for seven years at Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer, Israel. Last January, a team of doctors and neuroscientists from Israel's Soroka University Medical Center was hired to subject the now eighty-four-year-old Sharon to a series of sophisticated brain scans. The team showed the former prime minister pictures of random houses, which he would not be expected to be familiar with. Then they flashed a picture of his own house before his eyes. When the images of his own home were shown, areas of his brain "lit up" with activity. Similarly, his brain "fired up" in response to hearing family voices but not when nonsensical gibberish sounds were played for him

The NY SAFE Act requires individuals who own a handgun or an assault rifle to recertify their permits every 5 years; limits the capacity of ammo clips to 7 shots; clarifies and broadens the definition of assault weapons to restrict their sale; and requires nearly all gun transfers between private parties to be conducted through a federal firearms licensee, subject to a federal National Instant Criminal Background Check. There has long been a legal obligation in most states, generated by the famous 1976 Tarasoffcase in California, that mental health care professionals disclose a threat of violence to an identifiable third party if they think the threat is credible and the act imminent

In this text, we present and elaborate ethical challenges in transplant medicine related to organ procurement and organ distribution, together with measures to solve such challenges. Based on internationally acknowledged ethical standards, we looked at cases of organ procurement and distribution practices that deviated from such ethical standards. One form of organ procurement is known as commercial organ trafficking, while in China the organ procurement is mostly based on executing prisoners, including killing of detained Falun Gong practitioners for their organs. Efforts from within the medical community as well as from governments have contributed to provide solutions to uphold ethical standards in medicine. The medical profession has the responsibility to actively promote ethical guidelines in medicine to prevent a decay of ethical standards and to ensure best medical practices.

Here, Caplan says if there is any silver lining in the ignorant, and grossly offensive statements offered about rape by the failed candidates for Senate in the recently concluded election, Missouri's Congressman Todd Akin and Indiana's Richard Mourdock, it is that they may have finally shown both the folly and the moral dodginess inherent in efforts by conservative fundamentalists to posit God's hand in every act, no matter how horrific or awful. They do this both in situations where misery besets an individual and where tragedy overwhelms a group and both are ethically disgusting. He adds he is inclined to think that the best explanation for hurricanes, floods, and other calamities is coincidence often compounded by poor human choices. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, there is a lot of prayer going on with mixed messages being sent, and God cannot satisfy everyone. Perhaps someday, fervent religious leaders will come to see that linking pregnancies resulting from rape and the destruction of a city to divine will and retribution is a very dicey and highly unethical thing to do

Researchers are developing a fertility preservation technique--testicular tissue cryopreservation (TTCP)--for prepubescent boys who may become infertile as a result of their cancer treatment. Although this technique is still in development, some researchers are calling for its widespread use. They argue that if boys do not bank their tissue now, they will be unable to benefit from any therapies that might be developed in the future. There are, however, risks involved with increasing access to an investigational procedure. This article examines four methods of expanding access to TTCP: (1) expansion of institutional review board (IRB)-approved research trials; (2) offering TTCP as an innovative procedure in hospitals; (3) offering TTCP as a standard practice in hospitals; and (4) commercialization of TTCP. The ethical and practical implications of each are evaluated through a comparison with umbilical cord blood banking (UCBB), a technology that has achieved widespread use based on similar claims of future benefit.