Scientist
Harvard Medical School
Amanda Merner, PhD, is the Senior Scientist in the Brain Bioethics Lab at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics. She received her doctorate in experimental psychology, with a specialization in affective neuroscience from Case Western Reserve University. During her graduate training, she conducted research in the Center for Neurological Restoration at Cleveland Clinic, where she examined cognitive and affective changes in patients who underwent deep brain stimulation surgery for the treatment of neuropsychiatric conditions. Dr. Merner went on to complete her postdoctoral research fellowship in neuroethics in the HMS Brain Bioethics Lab, where she integrated her training experiences in psychology, neuroscience, and neuromodulation to inform her research in neuroethics. Dr. Merner’s current work is centered around the ethical, legal, social, and clinical implications of emerging genomic and neural technologies in psychiatry. To this end she has two primary lines of work. The first examines patient-level impacts of deep brain stimulation and other neuromodulation for neuropsychiatric conditions, as well as post-trial obligations to participants in early-stage trials of deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant psychiatric conditions. The second line focuses on examining the potential impacts of integrating novel genomic technologies—particularly polygenic risk scores—into psychiatric care, and how to ensure responsible management of genetic testing in psychiatry.
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