Future health care applications resulting from progress in the neurosciences : the significance of neural plasticity research

Neurological, communicative and behavioral disorders afflict a significant part of the population in industrialized countries, and these disorders can be expected to gain in importance in the coming decades. In a considerable number of these dis-orders impairments in plasticity, i.e. deficiencies in the adaptive and regenerative capacity of the nervous system, play a central role. This paper considers the possibilities and probabilities of future improvements in treatment and prevention for a number of nervous system disorders following from neural plasticity research. Subsequently, it discusses the overall health policy implications of progress in the area of neural plasticity research and development in particular, and the neurosciences in general

Patient participation in decision making on biomedical research: changing the network

Participation of end users in decision-making on science is increasingly practiced, as witnessed by the growing body of scientific literature on case evaluations. In the biomedical field, however, end-user participation in decision-making is rare. Some scholars argue that because patients are stakeholders and relevant experts, they could also provide important contributions to decision-making within the field of biomedical research. But what strategies could be used to effectively implement patient participation in decision-making on biomedical research? In this article, we analyze strategies for patient participation and conclude that these can hardly be regarded effective because they do not ensure patients' structural influence on decision-making. We identify obstacles for effective patient participation, which seem to reflect a resilience of the current biomedical decision-making network. We subsequently elaborate on the concept of transition management in the search for clues on how to breach this resilience and change the network toward the inclusion of patients. © 2007 Sage Publications