About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about ethics in neuroscience, focusing in particular on: (i) the role of the British Psychological Society (BPS) in distributing and ensuring adherence to ethical guidelines for research; (ii) the four main BPS principles being respect for autonomy, privacy and dignity, scientific integrity, social responsibility, and maximising benefit and minimising harm; (iii) ethical considerations in neuroscience specifically surrounding satisfying participant curiosity about their brain; (iv) challenges around accidental findings in studies which involve brain scans, for both the participant/patient and researcher; (v) ethical considerations when applying brain scanning research which identifies activity in pain centres of the brain to ‘measuring’ people’s experiences of pain.

About the lecturer

Dr Ivana Babicova is a lecturer in psychology in the School of Social Sciences at Birmingham City University. Dr Babicova’s research interests are in dementia, pain assessment and positive psychology. Some of Dr Babicova’s recent publications include ‘Validation and evaluation of psychometric properties of PainChek®: an electronic pain assessment tool for people with moderate-to-severe dementia’ and ‘Pain in people with dementia: a systematic review and a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of observational pain assessment tools’ (2020).