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The Locked-in Syndrome: Perspectives from Ethics, History, and Phenomenology

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Abstract

The existential situation of persons who suffer from the locked-in syndrome (LIS) raises manifold issues significant to medical anthropology, phenomenology, biomedical ethics, and neuroethics that have not yet been systematically explored. The present special issue of Neuroethics illustrates the joint effort of a consolidating network of scholars from various disciplines in Europe, North America and Japan to go in that direction, and to explore LIS beyond clinical studies and quality of life assessments.

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Acknowledgments

This special issue of Neuroethics is part of the project “Anthropology and Phenomenology of the Locked-in Syndrome” coordinated by Fernando Vidal at the Medical Anthropology Research Center (Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain). It grows out of the workshop Personhood and the Locked-in Syndrome (Barcelona, 2016), which was funded by ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) with additional support from the Víctor Grifols i Lucas Foundation. We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of all those institutions. We also thank Neil Levy and Hannah Maslen, the former and current editors of Neuroethics, for their valuable advice throughout the preparation of this special issue. Project website: http://www.antropologia.urv.cat/en/research/projects/locked-in-syndrome/locked-in-syndrome.

This Introduction was in production when we received Locked-in Syndrome after Brain Damage: Living Within My Head, by Barbara Wilson, Paul Allen, Anita Rose, and Veronika Kubickova (New York, Routledge, 2019). This valuable book combines a personal story with a presentation of the neuropsychological, clinical and caregiving dimensions of LIS.

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  1. ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies), Barcelona, Spain

    Fernando Vidal

  2. Medical Anthropology Research Center, DAFITS, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Av. Catalunya 35, 43002, Tarragona, Spain

    Fernando Vidal

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  1. Fernando Vidal
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Correspondence to Fernando Vidal.

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Vidal, F. The Locked-in Syndrome: Perspectives from Ethics, History, and Phenomenology. Neuroethics 13, 115–118 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-019-09420-9

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