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The New York Times
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Other researchers have studied their own children in the past, but sophisticated technology allows modern-day scientists to collect new and more detailed data. The scientists also say that studying their children allows for more in-depth research and that the children make reliable participants in an era of scarce research financing.
Arthur Toga, a neurology professor at the medical school at the University of California, Los Angeles, studying brain change, scanned his three children’s brains using magnetic resonance imaging.
Researchers themselves acknowledge the challenge of being simultaneously scientist and parent.
“I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable, like I’m invading their privacy,” said Dr. Linebarger, who ultimately set some boundaries. “When you mix being a researcher with being a parent, it can put your kids in an unfair place.”
Children have been subjects for some well-known scientist-parents, including Jean Piaget, the child-development theorist. But some past examples would probably not pass ethical muster today.
Some scientists said that in studies with multiple subjects they considered it unnecessary to report their child’s participation, because they would face no greater risk than others. Some asserted that involving their children proved risks were minimal.
Dr. Toga said some nonscientists have said: “Why would a parent subject their kid to the dangers of M.R.I.? You should be ashamed of yourself.”
His response: “All I’m doing is taking a picture. Nobody loves my kids more than me. Would I ever do something that would endanger them?”
Some researchers sign required parental consent forms, and some have spouses sign.
“If they’re your kids and you want to ask them questions, you can,” he said. “If you want to put your kid into a drug trial, that’s different.”
Some researchers say scientist and parent roles sometimes intertwine.
“You put your kid in the scanner and you say please, please, please, let it be normal,” Dr. Toga said.
Some scientists’ research stems from their children’s experiences.
Dr. Toga said research had allowed his children to “come to work with Dad,” and get brain-scan printouts for show-and-tell. “They were so determined to please their father that they would lie still,” he said.
His daughter Rebecca, now 18, said that at first, “it was kind of claustrophobic” in the noisy scanner, her head covered with a “cage kind of thing,” her body tight in blankets. “The first time I kept talking because I was nervous, but then they just calmed me down and I got used to it,” she said. By age 8 or 9, she fell asleep during a study.
Pam Belluck
http://bit.ly/1apr8C
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