I don't think we don't know yet!

But here is Ben Barres' related NIH Grant: "An Astrocytic Basis for Humanity"

https://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=9068256&icde=34843317&ddparam=&ddvalue=&ddsub=&cr=2&csb=default&cs=ASC&pball=

Sadly, Prof. Barres, one the most respected neuroscientists in the country, has terminal cancer.

I don't know what will happen to this grant. Stanford's astrocyte research is at risk if they lose funding. However, there are plenty of people at Stanford now who would continue the tradition if they could.

The question of animal experimentation bears directly on EA funding decisions.

There is no "vegan" way out for some kinds of studies. I personally would volunteer for some kinds of experiments, if I had just a short time to live. Even that would not cover all of the necessary cases, and I might be prevented.

For example, we urgently need to map fluid flows in the brain. When we sleep, flows in the "glymphatic system" turn on and off. We barely understand this phenomenon.

If we knew more, we could try new treatments for Alzheimer's disease, stroke, sleep disorders and mental illness. Medication dosing would become more accurate, and we might even know more about how cancers in the brain spread.

Institutional Review Boards get confused about these issues, too. Without clarity, both fighting disease and human enhancement (for good or bad) will be hampered.

That's why we need clear vision in neuroethics. Ethical theory very quickly feeds into research approval and funding determinations.

Thanks, I've been talking with 'em every week :) .

What's quite clear to me, whether it's morally justifiable in terms some EAs will agree with, or not:

If we do not let them do some unappealing things to mice, that will cost millions of human lives.

This is a good start about some of the issues, but there is a need to bulk it up with information directly from neuroscientists.

For instance, some very senior people in the Stanford neuroscience community think that an essential difference between animals and people may be that the astrocytes, "helper cells," are so very different. Among many other things, astrocytes help to create and destroy synapses.

Neuroscientists also routinely do mice experiments, and a few have very sophisticated answers to ethical questions about what they do.

There are a lot of topics in EA ethics that benefit from a grounding in neuroscience and neuroethics. Both of these fields also contain many EA opportunities themselves. If money is being put down, then it's time to add some expert scientific opinion.