Luis Echarte, research collaborator with the Mind-Brain Group of the Institute for Culture and Society and professor within the School of Medicine, University of Navarra, co-authored a poster selected among the top five of the year by the International Neuroethics Society (INS). Notably, the Mind-Brain project receives funding from La Caixa's Obra Social funds.

The poster is co-authored by Denis Larrivee of the Educational Outreach Office, Catholic Diocese of Charleston (USA) and by Adriana Gini of the Department of Neuroradiology, Camillo Forlanini Medical Center (Italy).

The poster, entitled "Personal Identity and Neurotechnology: Ethical Reflections on Modulating Habit Formation," will be presented at the annual meeting of the INS in Washington (USA) to be held on the 13^th and 14^th of November, 2014.

Ethical challenges posed by contemporary neurotechnology

The chosen poster details the ethical challenges posed by contemporary neurotechnology and the role that habit circuits play in personal identity.

The authors claim that "there are limits to the manipulation of the human body" and, with this in mind, they suggest that habits (both rational and emotional) help safeguard personal identity in circumstances in which the brain is modified by technological intervention, whether for enhancement or therapeutic purposes.

As the researchers clarify, "The existence of habits preserves the experience of narrative coherence in cases where biotechnology partially or totally changes the patient's personality."