1 Introduction and scope of review

This literature review has been prepared for Toi te Taiao: the New Zealand Bioethics Council. Its purpose is to identify key publications in the peer reviewed medical and bioethics literature and from international Neuroethics research groups, and review the issues raised and ethical approaches used.  Neuroethics is understood as the study of the ethics of neuroscience.

The boundaries of ‘neuroethics’ are not clearly defined, and it is important to note some exclusions in this review.  This paper does not review

• The neuroscience of ethics – studies of the neural basis of ethical thinking
• The ethical literature within the philosophical literature (which would have required searches of additional databases)
• Papers focussed on neuroscience, but which review long-standing, and well discussed ethical issues e.g. informed consent for participation in research trials.  Papers which cover long-standing discussions are only included if they explore ethical dimensions of the issue that are particular to neuroscience.

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