Since 1995, the American Academy of Neurology has provided guidelines for brain death determination, but nationwide adherence to these guidelines has been incomplete.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(12):E1027-1032. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.1027.
Dr Ariane Lewis discusses how we can navigate uncertainty and ambiguity about brain death by understanding clinical criteria for brain death determination and how our approaches to death are culturally and socially situated.
Adhering too strictly to biomedical thinking about diagnosis can prevent clinicians from empathically engaging with patients and helping them navigate their illness experiences.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(7):E537-541. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.537.
The early diagnosis of Alzheimer disease is a boon in that it enables advance planning, but that planning process can engender conflict between respect for future-oriented autonomy and future welfare.
Our ability to infer mental states from fMRI scans is still rudimentary, but the time may be approaching when neuroimaging can be used to indicate witnesses’ reliability in court proceedings.