Neuroethics & Law Blog

Pain Assessment and the Law

Nature News reports on a study that found a correlation between certain brain wave measurements and pain intensity. The not-yet-published study will add to a growing body of neuroscience research that correlates the experience of physical pain with objective findings in brain images and other diagnostic media. This particular study was highly invasive, but a great deal of research involves non-invasive brain imaging. For example, a group of German researchers have reported finding microstructural changes in the brain associated with chronic back pain using a technology called diffusion tensor imaging.

New pain assessment tools have tremendous potential to improve court and administrative proceedings that relate to personal injury and disability. Right now, juries are frequently called upon to assess damages for pain, even though many people exaggerate symptoms; some claims are entirely malingered. On the other hand, people can also have quite genuine claims for which they have little objective proof. And people with certain mental or motor difficulties may be incapable of telling us about the pain from which they nevertheless suffer. Juries and administrative law judges sometimes have little more to go on than hocus pocus. While we're a long way from having technologies ready for the courtroom, it's only a matter of time before courts are confronted with new neurotechnologies purporting to demonstrate the presence, absence, or intensity of pain symptoms.

I discuss these issues in more detail here and will present on these and other issues tomorrow at the University of Pennsylvania's Neuroethics Talk Series.  (Originally posted here.)

Law and Evidence Conf. & Call for Papers

Here's another great event sent in to the Neuroethics & Law Blog.  I understand that submissions on the uses and abuses of neuroscience evidence at trial are certainly on point:

EPISTEME will hold its fifth annual conference at Dartmouth College on June 20-21, 2008.

The focus of this year’s meeting is law and evidence.

Confirmed participants include:

Susan Haack (University of Miami), Larry Laudan (National Autonomous University of Mexico), Jennifer Mnookin (UCLA), Dale Nance (Case Western Reserve), Michael Saks (Arizona State University), Frederick Schauer (Harvard University), Edward Stein (Cardozo School of Law), and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Dartmouth College).

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Papers should be no more than 5,000 words, excluding notes and references, and should be prepared for blind review. Electronic submissions should be sent to Walter Sinnott-Armstrong by January 15, 2008. Approximately six papers will be selected from the submissions for presentation at the conference. A smaller subset of these papers will be published in an issue of EPISTEME, with Frederick Schauer and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong as Guest Editors. Conference organizers are: Frederick Schauer and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.

Consciousness, Volition, and Action: Symposium on Ben Libet

I have learned from Walter Sinnott-Armstrong about the following event, sure to interest many of our readers:

Symposium on Real-Time Consciousness, Volition and Action - A Tribute to Ben Libet

Sponsored by the Macarthur Law & Neuroscience Project, and
The University of Arizona Mind, Brain and Society Program.

This symposium consists of two 4 hour sessions to honor the work  of Benjamin Libet and its implications for moral and legal responsibiity. Libet, who died in the summer of 2007, was well known  for his ingenious experiments that seemed to show that conscious will occurs after readiness potentials in the brain. These striking results are often interpreted as showing that conscious will does not cause actions or that we do not have free will, but only free won't. We want to bring together some psychologists and philosophers who support this interpretation together with others who reject it, as well as scientists who are doing new work that builds on Libet's findings. We will also bring philosophers and lawyers to discuss the implications of Libet's work for freedom and responsibility.

April 7, 2:00-6:00 p.m. Workshop on Libet and Conscious Will

The Neuroscience of Conscious Will
Speaker 1 (30 minutes): Hakwan Lau and Brian Maniscalco (Columbia)
Speaker 2 (30 minutes): Sue Pockett (Otago)
Speaker 3 (30 minutes): Angela Sirigu (Institut des Sciences Cognitives)
Panel Discussion (30 minutes)

The Psychology of Conscious Will
Speaker 1 (30 minutes): Thalia Wheatley (Dartmouth)
Speaker 2 (30 minutes): Carey Morewedge (Carnegie Mellon University)
Speaker 3 (30 minutes): Terence Horgan (Arizona)
Panel Discussion (30 minutes)

April 8, 9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.

Workshop on Libet, Free Will, and Responsibility

Philosophical Implications of Libet's Work on Conscious Will
Speaker 1 (30 minutes): Derk Pereboom (Cornell)
Speaker 2 (30 minutes): Al Mele (Florida)
Speaker 3 (30 minutes): Adina Roskies (Dartmouth)
Panel Discussion (30 minutes)

Legal Implications of Libet's Work on Conscious Will
Speaker 1 (30 minutes): Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Dartmouth)
Speaker 2 (30 minutes): Michael Moore (Illinois Law)
Speaker 3 (30 minutes): Larry Alexander (UCSD Law)
Panel Discussion (30 minutes)

Baylor's Law, Brains, & Behavior Initiative

The following message was sent to the Neuroethics & Law Blog by Daniel Goldberg:

The Eagleman Laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine is pleased to announce the launch of the Initiative on Law, Brains & Behavior.  This Initiative addresses how new discoveries in neuroscience affect the ways we make laws, punish criminals, and develop rehabilitation.  The project brings together a unique collaboration of neurobiologists, legal scholars, ethicists, medical humanists, and policy makers, with the goal of building modern, evidence-based policy.

BCM, a top ten medical school, is particularly well-positioned to host such an Initiative, being home to a top-flight neuroscience department and one of the premier research neuroimaging facilities in the nation.  At present, the ILBB currently teaches an interdisciplinary seminar on Law, Brains, and Behavior.  Graduate students in neuroscience, law students, undergraduate students, mental health professionals, medical humanists, and health policy scholars are all participating in the seminar.  The ILBB will also host a conference in the fall of 2008, bringing together stakeholders from a variety of disciplines to address the ethical, legal, and social implications of developments in neuroscience. 

Discussion regarding other ILBB projects and areas of interest is ongoing.  Further information is available on the ILBB website:

http://neuro.bcm.edu/eagleman/neurolaw.html

Those with questions regarding the ILBB are invited to contact the Director, David Eagleman, Ph.D. or the Research Professor, Daniel S. Goldberg, J.D., Ph.D Student. 

Call for Papers: Behavioral Sciences and the Law (Murphy)

A call for papers that may be of interest to blog readers:

Special Issue on The Neuroscience of Decision Making and the Law

 

Behavioral Sciences and the Law announces a forthcoming special issue on the neuroscience of decision making and the law, to be co-edited by Steven K. Erickson, J.D., LL.M., Ph.D. and Alan R. Felthous, M.D. Manuscripts that address the following issues are especially welcome:  Neuroscience and neuroimaging results of areas of moral judgment; the impact and limitations of such finings on legally relevant behavior; neuropsychiatric, neuropsychological and genetic disorders which impinge on intent and responsibility.     Original research reports and forensically relevant literature reviews will be included.

In addition to clinically relevant manuscripts examining the above issues, legal reviews and scholarly essays examining the interplay between relevant scientific findings and historic or contemporary legal norms are also sought. In particular, essays which explore the development of concepts of intentionality and responsibility in light of salient scientific findings are welcome.  Such manuscripts should incorporate recent findings from the neuroscience field. 

Manuscripts could be 20 to 30 doubled-spaced typewritten pages and should comply with the editorial and referencing style of the most recent edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association or the Harvard Law Review’s Association’s The Bluebook:  A Uniform System of Citation (but not both).  Specific style requirements can be found in a recent copy of the journal, or can be obtained via direct communication with any of the journal’s editors.

To expedite processing, submit the manuscript electronically.  Authors should use e-mail attachments, with the manuscript readable in Windows-based MS Word or Word Perfect formats.  If using postal mail, submit manuscript in triplicate with two copies prepared for blind review, to either of the special issues editors, Steven K. Erickson, J.D., LL.M., Ph.D.  or Alan R. Felthous, M.D. who can be reached at:
 

Steven K. Erickson, J.D., LL.M., Ph.D.
MIRECC Fellow
Yale University/VA Healthcare Network
950 Campbell Ave, Building #35
West Haven, CT 06516
Tel: (203) 321-5298
e-mail: steven.erickson@yale.edu <mailto:steven.erickson@yale.edu>

Alan R. Felthous, M.D.
Division of Forensic Psychiatry
Department of Neurology and Psychiatry
Saint Louis University School of Medicine
1438 S. Grand Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63104 USA
Tel: (314) 977-4825
Fax: (314) 977-4876
e-mail: felthous@slu.edu <mailto:felthous@slu.edu>

The deadline for submissions is July 1, 2008.

Guest Posts at Concurring Opinions

This month, I have been guest blogging at a general interest law blog, called Concurring Opinions.  In case readers here are interested, I've put links below to some of my posts:

• Not Necessarily the Daily Show
• Cat in the Hand Versus Birds in the Bush
• Grow Some Hair on Your Chess
• Enlightenment 2.0

Nitpicking the Neuroscientists' Letter to the Editor

Here's a NYT letter to the editor from a group of neuroscientists challenging Sunday's neuropolitics op-ed.  While it's hard to disagree with the gist of the letter, one can pick on a few points where the letter writers could have made their claims more pointed and precise:

(1) The letter says that the op-ed "claimed that it is possible to directly read the minds of potential voters by looking at their brain activity while they viewed presidential candidates."  This probably overstates the view of the op-ed authors.  The op-ed purports to make inferences from brain activity; the op-ed authors might well deny that they are "directly read[ing] the minds" of swing voters.

(2) The letter also says "As cognitive neuroscientists who use the same brain imaging technology, we know that it is not possible to definitively determine whether a person is anxious or feeling connected simply by looking at activity in a particular brain region. This is so because brain regions are typically engaged by many mental states, and thus a one-to-one mapping between a brain region and a mental state is not possible."  Again, even the op-ed authors would likely agree that they cannot "definitively" determine anything.  That's too high of a standard even for cautious neuroscientists.

(3) The letter writers point out that "the results reported in the article were apparently not peer-reviewed, nor was sufficient detail provided to evaluate the conclusions."  But they may overstate the case when they say, "[W]e are distressed by the publication of research in the press that has not undergone peer review, and that uses flawed reasoning to draw unfounded conclusions about topics as important as the presidential election."  Is this claim conjunctive or disjunctive?  Research that has not (yet) been peer reviewed is published in mainstream media all the time.  Sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad.  I doubt that they want to weigh in on this broader issue.  Thus, their real concern is probably just the second part of the statement, namely that the op-ed "uses flawed reasoning to draw unfounded conclusions." 

Slate on the Neuropolitics 0p-Ed

Daniel Engber at Slate addresses the Iacobani, Freedman, et al. op-ed in the Sunday New York Times.  Here are a couple of excerpts, including some interesting links and a reference to this blog:

As the authors of what is essentially an extended FKF advertorial, Freedman and his colleagues have a strong incentive to tout their services and sex up the findings. Even so, many of their conclusions seem either haphazard or comically vague. Take their first point: When test subjects were shown the name of a political party—either the words Republican, Democrat, or Independent—they responded with neural activity in the amygdala, the insula, and the striatum. According to the authors, these regions of the brain correspond to feelings of anxiety, disgust, and pleasure. Really, all three? From that meaningless mishmash of emotions, they meekly conclude that "voters sense both peril and promise in party brands."

. . .

So, the study's findings aren't believable on their own terms. Take a step back, and there may be more fundamental problems. At the Neuroethics and Law Blog, cognitive neuroscientist Martha Farah tweaks the FKF team for assuming that activity in a given brain region always reflects the same emotional state. When subjects looked at photos of Mitt Romney, they showed increased blood flow to the amygdala—which the researchers interpreted here and elsewhere as a sign of anxiety. That's not necessarily true: The amygdala can also light up during the experience of anger, happiness, or sexual arousal.

Why has the New York Times proved so willing to donate its column space to this private company and its sloppy experiments? Perhaps the paper's editors have fallen prey to what psychologist Frank Keil calls the "illusion of explanatory depth." As Keil has shown in his own research, even gazing dumbly at a picture of the brain makes us feel as though we're deepening our understanding of the human mind. The fMRI scans published on Sunday, and the largely unsurprising findings they are meant to support, reveal the strength of this illusion.

Trolley Problems: Mikhail on Greene

John Mikhail (Georgetown, Law) has posted Moral Cognition and Computational Theory (Walter Sinnott-Armstong, ed., Moral Psychology, Vol. 3: The Neuroscience of Morality (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008)) to SSRN  Here is the abstract:

In his path-breaking work on the foundations of visual perception, the MIT neuro-scientist David Marr distinguished three levels at which any information-processing task can be understood and emphasized the first of these: “Although algorithms and mechanisms are empirically more accessible, it is the top level, the level of computational theory, which is critically important from an information-processing point of view. The reason for this is that the nature of the computations that underlie perception depends more upon the nature of the computational problems that have to be solved than upon the particular hardware in which their solutions are implemented.”

In this comment on Joshua Greene's essay, “The Secret Joke of Kant's Soul,” I argue that a notable weakness of Greene's approach to moral psychology is its neglect of computational theory. A central problem moral cognition must solve is to recognize (i.e., compute representations of) the deontic status of human acts and omissions. How do people actually do this? What is the theory which explains their practice?

Greene claims that emotional response “predicts” deontological judgment, but his own explanation of a subset of the simplest and most extensively studied of these judgments—trolley problem intuitions—in terms of a personal/impersonal distinction is neither complete nor descriptively adequate. In a series of influential papers, Greene argues that people rely on three features to distinguish the well-known Bystander and Footbridge problems: “whether the action in question (a) could reasonably be expected to lead to serious bodily harm, (b) to a particular person or a member or members of a particular group of people (c) where this harm is not the result of deflecting an existing threat onto a different party.” Greene claims to predict trolley intuitions and patterns of brain activity on this basis. However, this explanation is incomplete, because we are not told how people manage to interpret the stimulus in terms of these features; surprisingly, Greene leaves this crucial first step in the perceptual process unanalyzed. Additionally, Greene's account is descriptively inadequate, because it cannot explain even simple counterexamples, let alone countless real-life examples which can be found in any casebook of torts or criminal law. Hence Greene has not shown that emotional response predicts these moral intuitions in any significant sense. Rather, his studies suggest that some perceived deontological violations are associated with strong emotional responses, something few would doubt or deny. Moreover, a better explanation of these intuitions is available, one that grows out of the computational approach to cognitive science that Marr helped to pioneer.

(Hat tip: Legal Theory Blog)

Links to Neuropolitics Post

Here is a partial list of blogs that have linked to Martha Farah's guest post:

• Mind Hacks
• AJOB Editors Blog
• Omni Brain
• Brendan Nyhan's Blog
• Language Log
• Brain Ethics
• Concurring Opinions (AK guest blogging)