Neuroethics & Law Blog

Don't Get in Touch With Your Inner Murderer

Explanations for modern human behavior rooted in evolutionary psychology have come under particularly strong attack lately.  (See, e.g., here.)

With that caveat in mind, I direct your attention to this article in the L.A. Times by David Buss, a well-known evolutionary psychologist, who claims that "we all have the capacity to become murderers." Here's an excerpt:

The unfortunate fact is that killing has proved to be a disturbingly effective solution to an array of adaptive problems in the unforgiving evolutionary games of survival and reproductive competition: preventing injury, rape or death; protecting one's children; eliminating a crucial antagonist; acquiring a rival's resources; securing sexual access to a competitor's mate; preventing an interloper from appropriating one's own mate; and many others. The logic of evolutionary struggle is all about reproductive competition. Those strategies that lead to greater reproductive success are selected for, over eons of evolution, and come to characterize our species.
. . . .

If we all have mental mechanisms designed for murder, why don't more of us kill? For one thing, killing is so costly for victims that natural selection has fashioned finely honed defenses — anti-homicide strategies — designed to damage those who attempt to destroy us. We kill to prevent being killed, so attempting murder is a dangerous strategy indeed. Second, we live in a modern world of laws, judges, juries and jails, which have been extremely effective in raising the cost of killing. Homicide rates among traditional cultures lacking written laws and professional police forces are far higher than those in modern Western cultures. Among the Yanomamo of Venezuela and the Gebusi of Africa, for example, more than 30% of men die by being murdered.

It may be disturbing to think of killing as evolutionarily adaptive and part of human nature, but this does not mean approval or acceptance of murder. I would suggest instead that those who create myths of a peaceful human past, who blame killing on the contemporary ills of modern culture and who cling to single-variable theories that have long outlived their scientific warrant are the ones who tread on dangerous moral ground. The problem of murder cannot be solved by wishing away undesirable aspects of human nature.

(Thanks to Mind Hacks for a pointer to the L.A. Times article.)

Episode 5: Planning for the New DSM

Zack Lynch of the Brain Waves Blog offers this informative post about the timeline and plans for DSM-V (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Ed.) slated for publication in 2011.  He notes:

For those who are interested in this very important subject, I highly recommend visiting the website and downloading the free book published by the American Psychiatric Association, A Research Agenda for DSM-V. It's a 280 page primer with interesting tidbits on the future of neuroimaging and the important role that neuroinformatics must play going forward.

Interview with 'Sexy Sexpert'

The Mind Hacks Blog has posted an interview here with the self-described "Sexy Sexpert" Dr. Victoria Zdrok.  In addition to being a clinical psychologist, she is a former lawyer and model. Here's an excerpt of her bio from one of her websites:

Instead of high school, she was placed in a college track, after scoring higher than 95% of college-bound American youth on the verbal portion of the SAT. Seizing that opportunity, Victoria received her bachelors degree in psychology at the age of 18, and at 19, she had the honor of being accepted into a prestigious joint law and psychology graduate program hosted by Villanova Law School and Drexel University. She received her J.D. degree in law in 1997, and became a member of New York and New Jersey Bar Associations. She received her . . . Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 2003. . . . Throughout her extensive graduate training she tackled complex psychosexual and psycholegal issues and authored papers on such diverse topics as the right to self-determination of nations practicing female circumcision and the effects of sexual involvement with the therapist on the well-being of a patient. Victoria's skills as an articulate writer and speaker (in several foreign languages) are gaining her the reputation as one of the most quotable experts in her field.

To support herself and her immigrant family while pursuing her academic career, Dr. Zdrok turned to modeling. She went on to appear in most leading men's magazines, in ads and commercials, becoming an international sex symbol yet managing to defy the stereotype of a "blonde bombshell" by persisting on a scholastic path.

Law and Emotion Article on SSRN

Terry A. Maroney (NYU, Law) has posted Law and Emotion: A Proposed Taxonomy of an Emerging Field on SSRN. Here is an excerpt from the abstract:

Many scholars - from fields as diverse as psychology, law, philosophy, and neuroscience - have begun to study the intersection of emotion and law. I describe that scholarship's development; propose that it is organized along six interrelated but theoretically distinct foci; and suggest directions for future research.

The notion that reason and emotion are cleanly separable - and that law admits only of the former - is deeply engrained, though it recently has come under attack. Law and emotion scholarship proceeds from the beliefs that emotion may be specifically studied, that it is relevant to law, and that its legal relevance is deserving of close scrutiny.

(Thanks to Legal Theory Blog for the pointer.)

Judges' Perceptions of Child Witnesses

Canadian researchers have reported results from two related studies that bear on: (1) the ability of Canadian judges to detect lying children and (2) Canadian judges' perceptions of the credibility of children.  Here's an article from Science Daily, and here's an excerpt:

The research showed that social workers and other professionals working in child protection, and judges correctly identify children who are lying at only slightly above chance levels after watching mock interviews. Judges perform comparably to other justice system officials and significantly better than law students.

While the mock interviews don't replicate the judge's courtroom experience, "the results show that judges are not human lie detectors," says Bala.

. . .

The survey asked Canadian judges about their perceptions of child and adult witnesses on such issues as suggestibility, leading questions, memory and perceptions of honesty in child witnesses. It found that children are perceived as:

• more susceptible to suggestibility during pre-court interviews
• more influenced by leading questions
• less likely than adults to intentionally set out to deceive during court testimony.

Cognitive Bias in Fingerprint Matching

A new article in Applied Cognitive Psychology (see abstract here) presents evidence that fingerprint matching can be influenced by "emotional background stories of crimes and explicitly disturbing photographs from crime scenes, as well as subliminal messages."  The authors report a tendency to find matches where one shouldn't.  Based on the abstract, the evidence appears to have been gathered under experimental conditions rather than real life law enforcement conditions. (Thanks CrimProf Blog).

Star Wars and Social Commentary

Here are some musings on (1) the nature/nurture debate, (2) the effects of single family parenting on children, and (3) the ambitious pursuit of power from . . . George Lucas and the Star Wars film series.

Pinker on Sexual Orientation and the Brain

I posted here on recent research on sexual orientation and the brain.  In today's NYT (see here), Steven Pinker discusses the research.  Here's an excerpt:

The difference in the brain responses of gay and straight men does not, by itself, prove that homosexuality is innate; after all, learned inclinations, like innate ones, must reside somewhere in the brain. But in this case nature probably does trump nurture. Gay men generally report that their homosexual attractions began as soon as they felt sexual stirrings before adolescence. And homosexuality is more concordant in identical than in fraternal twins, suggesting that their shared genes play a role. Homosexuality is a puzzle for biology, not because homosexuality itself is evolutionarily maladaptive (though no more so than any other sexual act that does not result in conception), but because any genetic tendency to avoid heterosexual opportunities should have been selected out long ago. Perhaps "gay genes" have some other compensating advantage, like enhancing fertility, when they are carried by women. Perhaps the environments that set off homosexuality today didn't exist while our genes were being selected. Or perhaps the main cause is biological yet not directly genetic, like differences in hormones or antibodies that affect the fetus while it is developing.

He also suggests that research into sexual orientation is stifled in the United States:

It may not be a coincidence that the new discovery came from researchers in Europe. In America, the biology of homosexuality is a politicized minefield that scares away scientists (and the universities and agencies that pay for their research). Which is a pity. Regardless of where homosexuality resides in the brain, the ethics of homosexuality is a no-brainer: what consenting adults do in private is nobody's business but their own. And the deterrents to research on homosexuality leave us in ignorance of one of the most fascinating sources of human diversity.

Our Cybernetic Futures?

Here's an interesting story about training monkeys to control a robotic arm using their own brain signals.  It discusses, inter alia, the changes that occured in their brains to enable them to do so.  An excerpt:

Monkeys that learn to use their brain signals to control a robotic arm are not just learning to manipulate an external device, Duke University Medical Center neurobiologists have found. Rather, their brain structures are adapting to treat the arm as if it were their own appendage.

The finding has profound implications both for understanding the extraordinary adaptability of the primate brain and for the potential clinical success of brain-operated devices to give the handicapped the ability to control their environment, said the researchers.

And further down:

The scientists next removed the joystick, after which the monkeys continued to move their arms in mid-air to manipulate and "grab" the cursor, thus controlling the robot arm. However, after a few days, the monkeys realized that they did not need to move their own arms. Their arm muscles went completely quiet, they kept the arm at their side, and they controlled the robot using only their brain and visual feedback.

Death Penalty "Volunteers"

The preceding post concerned the application of the death penalty to Michael Ross, who was deemed competent to make the choice to drop his appeals and become a so-called death penalty "volunteer."  Here's how the story turned out.

Death Penalty and the Schiavo Case

The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that Michael Ross is competent to waive his appeals in his death penalty case and receive his punishment.  From the Hartford Courant:

The state Supreme Court has again upheld serial killer Michael Ross' mental competence and his decision to forgo further appeals and become the first convict executed in New England in nearly 45 years.

The high court's unanimous ruling Monday virtually guarantees defeat to other state court challenges that hinge on claims that Ross is mentally unfit to volunteer to die. But it is equally certain that, with the execution now less than 72 hours away, the legal waters will rapidly grow turbulent with motions and appeals in state and federal courts.

The Sentencing Law and Policy Blog suggests a parallel between this case and the Schiavo case:

In both, a lot of "outsiders" (in the form of family members and others) are expending a lot of time and energy to prevent a death that seems sought by the person who is to die (and who would not have such a fantastic life even if kept alive).

See here for a somewhat more detailed analysis, along with background links on the case.

On Managers and Psychopaths

Yesterday's NYT offers this interesting op-ed on personality traits shared by both management leaders and the mentally ill (and suggests that the analysis sheds light on the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations).  Here's an excerpt:

There has been anecdotal and case-study evidence suggesting that successful business executives share personality characteristics with psychopaths. The question is, are the characteristics that make up personality disorders fundamentally different from the characteristics of extreme personalities we see in everyday life, or do they differ only in degree?

In 2001, I compared the personality traits of 39 high-ranking business executives in Britain with psychiatric patients and criminals with a history of mental health problems. The business managers completed a standard clinical personality-disorder diagnostic questionnaire and then were interviewed. The information on personality disorders among criminals and psychiatric patients had been gathered by local clinics.

Our sample was small, but the results were definitive. If personality and its pathology are distinct from each other, we should have found different levels of personality disorders in these diverse populations. We didn't. The character disorders of the business managers blended together with those of the criminals and mental patients.

Stem Cell Success for Spinal Injuries in Rodents

The Journal of Neuroscience reports that researchers have successfully transplanted cells derived from human embryonic stem cells into rats with moderate spinal cord injuries.  These injuries caused "moderate hindlimb motor impairment." The transplanted cells survived when transplanted either 1 week or 10 months after the injury, and improved locomotion was noted in those rats who received the transplanted cells within one week.  See here for more.  (Thanks HealthLaw Prof Blog.)

"The Ethical Brain" by Michael Gazzaniga

Michael Gazzaniga's new book, "The Ethical Brain," is now available.  Today's NYT describes the book here as follows:

These two experiences, as veteran neuroscientist and fledgling bioethicist, have come together in a new book by Dr. Gazzaniga called "The Ethical Brain." In it, Dr. Gazzaniga argues that understanding the latest developments in neuroscience is essential for the public to make sound decisions about the promise and dangers of advances in medicine. Neuroscience is even shedding light on how moral beliefs take shape in our brain.

"If people learn more about what the underlying brain story is, I think it will help them think more clearly about the situation," Dr. Gazzaniga said in an interview at his Dartmouth office.

The story also describes some of Gazzaniga's experiences as a member of the President's Council on Bioethics:

In December 2001, Dr. Gazzaniga was invited to join the bioethics council by Dr. Leon Kass, its current chairman. "I said, 'I don't know anything about bioethics,' " Dr. Gazzaniga recalled. Dr. Kass assured him that the council wasn't supposed to be a group of bioethicists, and Dr. Gazzaniga agreed to join.

The council immediately took up the debate on stem cell research. Dr. Gazzaniga supports the cloning of cells to produce embryos that can be used to extract stem cells. Others on the council felt very differently. They argued that a fertilized human egg represented a potential unique individual and that creating such eggs solely for research was wrong.

Dr. Gazzaniga is quick to point out that his differences with other council members were strictly intellectual. "There's no one I don't respect on the committee. They're all smart people," he said. "I heatedly disagree with some of them, but they're not lunatics."

Nevertheless, he did not shy from argument. At one meeting in 2002, Dr. Kass described his sense of awe at watching cells divide. "I countered him with, 'You ever see a tumor cell divide?' " Dr. Gazzaniga said. "It's also pretty miraculous event, but all it does is fill you up with rage. You can look at it in two different ways."

Dr. Gazzaniga argues that it is meaningless to call a fertilized egg a potential human being. "There's potential for 30 homes in a Home Depot, but if the Home Depot burns down, the headline isn't '30 Homes Burn Down.' It's 'Home Depot Burns Down,' " Dr. Gazzaniga said.

Sexual Orientation and the Brain

Today's NYT has a story here on recent groundbreaking research into sexual orientation:

Using a brain imaging technique, Swedish researchers have shown that homosexual and heterosexual men respond differently to two odors that may be involved in sexual arousal, and that the gay men respond in the same way as women.

More detail:

The two chemicals in the study were a testosterone derivative produced in men's sweat and an estrogen-like compound in women's urine, both of which have long been suspected of being pheromones.

Most odors cause specific smell-related regions of the human brain to light up when visualized by a form of brain imaging that tracks blood flow in the brain and therefore, by inference, sites where neurons are active. Several years ago, Dr. Savic and colleagues showed that the two chemicals activated the brain in a quite different way from ordinary scents.

The estrogen-like compound, though it activated the usual smell-related regions in women, lighted up the hypothalamus in men. This is a region in the central base of the brain that governs sexual behavior and, through its control of the pituitary gland lying just beneath it, the hormonal state of the body.

The male sweat chemical, on the other hand, did just the opposite; it activated mostly the hypothalamus in women and the smell-related regions in men. The two chemicals seemed to be leading a double life, playing the role of odor with one sex and of pheromone with another.

The Swedish researchers have now repeated the experiment but with the addition of gay men as a third group. The gay men responded to the two chemicals in the same way as did women, Dr. Savic reports, as if the hypothalamus's response is determined not by biological sex but by the owner's sexual orientation.

The article ends with this interesting, though cryptic, comment that is in need of further elaboration:

Gay men have fewer children, meaning that in Darwinian terms, any genetic variant that promotes homosexuality should be quickly eliminated from the population. Dr. Hamer believes that such genes may nevertheless persist because, although in men they reduce the number of descendants, in women they act to increase fertility.

Here's a related article in the NYT, with information on a different study toward the end:

In a separate study looking at response to body odors, researchers in Philadelphia found sharp differences between gay and straight men and women.

''Our findings support the contention that gender preference has a biological component that is reflected in both the production of different body odors and in the perception of and response to body odors,'' said neuroscientist Charles Wysocki, who led the study.

It's hard to see how a simple choice to be gay or lesbian would influence the production of body odor, he said.