A general obligation to make aggregate research results available to participants has been widely supported in the bioethics literature. However, dementia research presents several challenges to this perspective, particularly because of the fear associated with developing dementia. The authors argue that considerations of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice fail to justify an obligation to make aggregate research results available to participants in dementia research. Nevertheless, there are positive reasons in favor of making aggregate research results available; when the decision is made to do so, it is critical that a clear strategy for communicating results is developed, including what support will be provided to participants receiving aggregate research results.

Neuroimaging research regularly yields “incidental findings”: observations of potential clinical significance in healthy volunteers or patients, but which are unrelated to the purpose or variables of the study.

The use of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies in psychiatric genetics research and its potential to generate individual research results will likely have far reaching implications for predictive and diagnostic practices. The extent of this impact may not be easily understood by psychiatric research participants during the consent process. The traditional consent process for studies involving human subjects does not address critical issues specific to NGS research, such as the return of results. We examined which type of research findings should be communicated, how this information should be conveyed during the consent process and what guidance is required by researchers and IRBs to help psychiatric research participants understand the peculiarities, the limits and the impact of NGS. Strong standards are needed to ensure appropriate use of data generated by NGS, to meet participants' expectations and needs, and to clarify researchers' duties regarding the disclosure of data and their subsequent management. In the short term, researchers and IRBs need to be proactive in revising current consent processes that deal with the disclosure of research findings.