• Sergio Ruiz, Paulina Ramos-Vergara, Rodrigo Concha, Fernando Altermatt, Rommy Von-Bernhardi, Mauricio Cuello, Jaime Godoy, Luca Valera, Pablo Araya, Edgardo Conde, Pablo Toro, and Constanza Caneo.
• Departamento de Psiquiatría, Escuela de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
• Rev Med Chil. 2021 Mar 1; 149 (3): 439-446.

AbstractRecently, the Chilean Senate approved the main ideas of a constitutional reform and a Neuro-rights bill. This bill aims to protect people from the potential abusive use of "neuro-technologies". Unfortunately, a literal interpretation of this law can produce severe negative effects both in the development of neuroscience research and medical practice in Chile, interfering with current treatments in countless patients suffering from neuropsychiatric diseases. This fear stems from the observation of the negative effects that recent Chilean legislations have produced, which share with the Neuro-Rights Law the attempt to protect vulnerable populations from potential abuse from certain medical interventions. In fact, Law 20,584 promulgated in 2012, instead of protecting the most vulnerable patients "incapacitated to consent", produced enormous, and even possibly irreversible, damage to research in Chile in pathologies that require urgent attention, such as many neuropsychiatric diseases. This article details the effects that Law 20.584 had on research in Chile, how it relates to the Neuro-Rights Law, and the potential negative effects that the latter could have on research and medical practice, if it is not formulated correcting its errors.

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