[First analysis of the deployment of the ethical approach in the field of mental health in the Nord Pas-de-Calais region].

For 3 years, the Regional Federation of Mental Health Research (F2RSM) has led a space ethics reflexion Department of mental health (ERESM) to federate structures that ethical institutions and mental health services have been creating in the Nord-Pas de Calais. This approach is, in many ways, revealing issues that involve the institutionalisation of ethical reflection in care facilities. In this article, after referring to the major developments in this field, we describe the conditions for the emergence of ethical bodies in the region.

Irritability and sensibility: key concepts in assessing the medical doctrines of Haller and Bordeu.

This article addresses the doctrinal controversy over the various characterizations of irritability and sensibility. In the middle of the eighteenth century, this scientific debate involved some encyclopaedist physicians, Albrecht von Haller (1709-1777), Jean-Jacques Ménuret de Chambaud (1733-1815), and Théophile de Bordeu (1722-1776). The doctor from Bern described irritability as an experimental property of the muscle fibers and made it the basis of a neo-mechanism in which organic reactions are related to the degree of irritation of the fibers.

Bioinformatics: The philosophical and ethical issues at stake in a new modality of research practices.

This article deals with the integration of ethical reflection into the research practices of the project at the Lille Nord-Pas-de-Calais genopole: "Multifactorial genetic pathologies and therapeutic innovations". The general hypothesis of this text is that changes in research practices in biology (mainly through the use of bioinformatics) imply changes in medical practices, which require critical reflection. This hypothesis could be broken down into three sub-hypotheses: (1) Research in biology is undergoing a complete transformation; (2) Research in biology is a cultural practice, which cannot be reduced to a simple cognitive action; (3) Research in biology is a techno-scientific practice.