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The Management of Incidental Findings in Neuro-Imaging Research: Framework and Recommendations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Erica K. Rangel
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Extract

With improved diagnostic capability and accuracy, the fields of medicine, neuroscience, psychiatry, and psychology have benefitted remarkably from the dramatic advancements in neuroimaging technology. Not only can surface and subsurface structures of the brain be mapped with incredible anatomical detail (with magnetic resonance imaging), now neural activity can be imaged across time as the brain responds to different stimuli (with functional magnetic resonance imaging). These sophisticated techniques have been a vital element in the recent increase in neuroimaging-based research. This increase, while producing new diagnostic techniques and improved treatment mechanisms for neurological disease, has also led to a new dilemma for human subjects researchers: how should incidental findings be managed? An incidental finding (IF) is a finding concerning an individual research participant that has potential health or reproductive importance and is discovered in the course of conducting research but is beyond the aims of this study.

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Independent
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , Spring 2010 , pp. 117 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2010

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