A European project called Neurotwin wants to make virtual copies of brains. But what is a replica or digital twin of the brain? “The digital avatar is essentially a mathematical model running on a computer,” explains Giulio Ruffini, coordinator of the Neurotwin project and co-founder of Neuroelectrics, a Spanish healthcare technology startup that is developing non-invasive therapies for neurological disorders such as epilepsy. “It’s not a physical copy of a brain, but software to simulate a specific person’s brain.” In the future it might be important to choose the best therapies for patients.
However, the digital copy of an organ raises ethical questions. And not only. For example, a patient should be told if his digital brain analysis predicts serious problems within a few weeks? And what happens to the copy of the organ after the patient dies? Will it have equal legal or ethical rights?
curated by Eleonora Giovinazzo