# Addressing Incidental Findings in Neuroimaging Studies: Never Easy, Rarely Rescue

## TL;DR

This paper argues against using the 'duty of easy rescue' to justify disclosing incidental brain findings in neuroimaging studies due to ethical and practical concerns.

## Contribution

The paper challenges the ethical justification for researchers to actively seek and disclose incidental findings in neuroimaging.

## Key findings

- The duty of easy rescue is not applicable to neuroimaging incidental findings due to potential burdens on researchers and participants.
- Disclosing incidental findings may lead to false positives and unnecessary medical interventions.
- Even when findings are medically managed, benefits to participants are not guaranteed.

## Abstract

Population‐wide neuroimaging studies reveal brain lesions in approximately 3% of putatively healthy research participants. It is unclear how researchers ought to address this problem and whether they should seek out incidental findings. Koplin and colleagues argue that researchers have a duty of easy rescue and therefore a duty to look for and disclose potentially serious incidental findings to research participants in neuroimaging studies. In this article, I argue that the duty of easy rescue is an inappropriate approach to this ethical problem. The duty of easy rescue paradigmatically applies to cases in which the intervention is (1) minimally burdensome to the rescuer, (2) virtually certain to minimally burden the individual in danger, and (3) virtually certain to confer benefit to the individual in danger. By contrast, looking for and disclosing potentially serious incidental findings is (1) often burdensome to researchers, (2) poses the risk of burdening research participants with false positive findings, and (3) even when a potentially serious incidental finding is found, disclosed, and medically managed, doing so may not confer benefit to the research participant. The duty of easy rescue is not a useful tool for navigating the ethical problems raised by incidental findings in population‐wide neuroimaging research.