The Consortium on Law and Values at the University of Minnesota will bring together a diverse range of experts from across the country forEmerging Portable Technology for Neuroimaging Research in New Field Settings: Legal & Ethical Challenges, a day-long conference held online Thursday, December 7, 2023.
To date, MRI brain scanners have been located out of sight in hospitals and large research facilities. But we are now entering the dawn of highly portable neuroimaging. Instead of participants traveling to the scanner, now the scanner will travel to them. Highly portable MRI may revolutionize neuroscience research, but only if urgent ethical and legal issues raised by the new technology are addressed.
Presentations will include recommendations developed in an NIH BRAIN Initiative grant on how to navigate key ethical and legal issues, as well as explorations of access issues, equity, privacy, data control, the role of the IRB, safety, and artificial intelligence. The conference will highlight the importance of community engagement and concerns raised by research in special populations including children and those with dementia. This will be the first ever conference on this topic.
At 1:30pm CST/11:30am PT, tune in as Dr. Judy Illes, CM, PhD, speaks on using portable MRI to address health disparities research with Indigenous Peoples. The panel, Community Engagement and Data Control in Portable MRI Research, will be moderated by Dr. Kafui Dzirasa, MD, PHD.