Neuroethics & Law Blog

Interim Update on Tennessee fMRI Lie Detection Case

Greg Miller provides some updates on the Tennessee case testing fMRI lie detection admissibility:

A federal court in Tennessee heard arguments yesterday and today on whether lie detection technology based on fMRI scans of brain activity should be admitted in a criminal case involving a psychologist accused of defrauding Medicare. Magistrate Judge Tu Pham presided over the pretrial hearing and could issue his report anytime between now and 1 June, when the trial begins.

The hearing provided the most formal legal test yet of whether fMRI lie detection meets the so-called Daubert standard for admitting evidence in federal court, and as such it could set an important precedent.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup By JHU Guest Blogger

Last Edition's Most Popular Article: When It Comes to Sex, Chimps Need Help, Too, The New York Times In the Popular Press: The Moral Life of Babies, The New York Times  The Science of a Happy Marriage, The New York Times Charting Creativity: Signposts of a Hazy Territory, The New York Times Mice Show Pain on Their Faces Just Like Humans, Wired Science  Academics say 'smart' drugs could be prescribed Academics say 'smart' drugs could be prescribed, Guardian  How to Prescribe Smart Drugs to Children Ethically, Practical Ethics Eureka! Neural Evidence for Sudden Insight, Science Daily Study Overturns Decade-Old Findings in Neurobiology: Research Suggests Potential Target for Drugs to Combat Alcohol Addiction, Science Daily From the Academic Literature: Washing Away Postdecisional Dissonance, Science  Epigenetics and Cognitive Aging, Science Modulation of subgenual anterior cingulate cortex activity with real-time neurofeedback, Human Brain Mapping   An fMRI study of risk-taking following wins and losses: Implications for the gambler's fallacy, Human Brain Mapping Expert Consensus on Characteristics of Wisdom: A Delphi Method Study, The Gerontologist A justice system that denies free will is not based on justice, PNAS Genome-wide Analysis of Genetic Loci Associated With Alzheimer Disease, JAMA Neuropsychological Dysfunction and Neuroimaging Abnormalities in Neurologically Intat Adults With Sickle Cell Anemia, JAMA Separating Hope from Hype: Some Ethical Implications of the Development of Deep Brain Stimulation in Psychiatric Research and Treatment, CNS Spectrums Responding to Requests from Adult Patients for Neuroenhancements: Guidance of the Ethics, Law and Humanities Committee, Neurology Must You Really Have Your Head Examined? Neuroimaging And Its Place In Modern-Day Psychiatry, Think Caffeine for the prevention of injuries and errors in shift workers, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the  Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

"Does Neuroscience Undermine Deontological Theory?"

Published in the current issue of Neuroethics:

Does Neuroscience Undermine Deontological Theory?

Richard Dean¹ 

(1)	California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, USA

Received: 7 July 2009  Accepted: 12 October 2009  Published online: 14 November 2009

Abstract  

Joshua Greene has argued that several lines of empirical research, including his own fMRI studies of brain activity during moral decision-making, comprise strong evidence against the legitimacy of deontology as a moral theory. This is because, Greene maintains, the empirical studies establish that “characteristically deontological” moral thinking is driven by prepotent emotional reactions which are not a sound basis for morality in the contemporary world, while “characteristically consequentialist” thinking is a more reliable moral guide because it is characterized by greater cognitive command and control. In this essay, I argue that Greene does not succeed in drawing a strong statistical or causal connection between prepotent emotional reactions and deontological theory, and so does not undermine the legitimacy of deontological moral theories. The results that Greene relies on from neuroscience and social psychology do not establish his conclusion that consequentialism is superior to deontology.

"Not so Fast. On Some Bold Neuroscientific Claims Concerning Human Agency"

Recently published in Neuroethics:

Not so Fast. On Some Bold Neuroscientific Claims Concerning Human Agency

Andrea Lavazza¹  and Mario De Caro² 

(1)	Viale A. Doria, 17, Milano, 20124, Italy

(2)	Dipartimento di Filosofia, Università Roma Tre, Via Ostiense, 234, Roma, 00144, Italy

Received: 21 June 2009  Accepted: 12 October 2009  Published online: 14 November 2009

Abstract  

According to a widespread view, a complete explanatory reduction of all aspects of the human mind to the electro-chemical functioning of the brain is at hand and will certainly produce vast and positive cultural, political and social consequences. However, notwithstanding the astonishing advances generated by the neurosciences in recent years for our understanding of the mechanisms and functions of the brain, the application of these findings to the specific but crucial issue of human agency can be considered a “pre-paradigmatic science” (in Thomas Kuhn’s sense). This implies that the situation is, at the same time, intellectually stimulating and methodologically confused. More specifically—because of the lack of a solid, unitary and coherent methodological framework as to how to connect neurophysiology and agency—it frequently happens that tentative approaches, bold but very preliminary claims and even clearly flawed interpretations of experimental data are taken for granted. In this article some examples of such conceptual confusions and intellectual hubris will be presented, which derive from the most recent literature at the intersection between neurosciences, on the one hand, and philosophy, politics and social sciences, on the other hand. It will also be argued that, in some of these cases, hasty and over-ambitious conclusions may produce negative social and political consequences. The general upshot will be that very much has still to be clarified as to what and how neurosciences can tell us about human agency and that, in the meantime, intellectual and methodological caution is to be recommended.

Brain Scan Lie Detection Evidence Not Admitted

A court in Brooklyn has deemed inadmissible fMRI evidence of the truthfulness of a witness in an employment discrimination case.  The details are sketchy but it sounds like the evidence was declined on the ground that credibility is a jury determination.  Apparently, the court did not consider the scientific merits or demerits of the technology.  See Wired story here (and an earlier story here). 

We will soon learn more about how courts handle such evidence in an upcoming criminal case.  The issues raised may be especially interesting in the criminal context where defendants have certain constitutional interests in presenting exculpatory evidence.  As I have argued informally and as Fred Schauer has argued in print ("Neuroscience, lie-detection and the law," Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2010), the strength of evidence we'd like to have to support a tort claim is different than the strength of evidence we need to raise a reasonable doubt in a criminal case. 

Here's what we know about the case from the Wired article:

Wired.com has learned that more brain scans conducted by the company Cephos will be put to the legal test in a federal case in the western district of Tennessee. On May 13, that court will hear arguments over fMRI evidence in a Daubert hearing, the procedure used to assess the admissibility of scientific information in Federal court.

In that case, the U.S. attorney charges that Lorne Semrau, a psychiatrist, sought to defraud Medicare and Medicaid in the way he contracted and billed for his services. Semrau argues he had no intent to defraud the government and underwent a brain scan to prove it. His attorney, J. Houston Gordon, filed paperwork indicating that Stephen Laken, president of Cephos, would testify on the fMRI evidence the company obtained.

“Dr. Laken will further testify that Dr. Semrau was presented questions using fMRI technology and was instructed to respond to questions in either/both a truthful or deceitful manner, depending on the question posed,” Gordon wrote. “The fMRI screening demonstrated to a scientific certainty, that Defendant was truthful and possessed no intent to defraud or cheat the government.”

And here are some of my previous comments on fMRI lie detection.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup from JHU Guest Blogger

Last Edition's Most Popular Article: Personality May Influence Brain Shrinkage in Aging, Science Daily In the Popular Press: The Data-Drive Life, The New York Times When It Comes to Sex, Chimps Need Help, Too, The New York Times Enhancing the Placebo, The New York Times Neuroscience: Illuminating the brain, Nature News Bonobo chimps filmed shaking their head to ‘say no’, BBC The Daily Dose – A nightmare on… Ambien?, Spoonful of Medicine Blinking Neurons Give Thoughts Away, Science Daily Lie-Detection Brain Scan Could Be Used in Court for First Time, Wired Science See Better by Believing You Can, Wired Science Disciplines Exchange Ideas on Art, Controversy, & Science, Framing Science  Breaking News: FMRI Lie Detection Evidence Excluded in NY Court, Center for Law and the Biosciences From the Academic Literature: Chimpanzee Technology, Science Cooperation and Punishment, Science Mutations in DCC Cause Congenital Mirror Movements, Science Olfactory pattern classification by discrete neuronal network states, Nature The Androgen Receptor Governs the Execution, but Not Programming, of Male Sexual and Territorial Behaviors, Neuron Ignoring the Elephant in the Room: A Neural Circuit to Downregulate Salience, Journal of Neuroscience Free will and psychiatric assessments of criminal responsibility: a parallel with informed consent, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy Region-specific alterations in brain development in one- to three-year-old boys with fragile X syndrome, PNAS Dissociating neural subsystems for grammar by constrasting word order and inflection, PNAS Neural bass of global resting-state fMRI activity, PNAS Deep Brain Stimulation Does Not Silence Neurons in Subthalamic Nucleus in Parkinson's Patients, Journal of Neurophysiology The Effects of Growth Hormone on Body Composition and Physical Performance in Recreational Athletes, Annals of Internal Medicine Is the ADHD brain wired differently? A review on structural and functional connectivity in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Human Brain Mapping Exploring the detection of associatively novel events using fMRI, Human Brain Mapping Methodological approaches in developmental neuroimaging studies, Human Brain Mapping

The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the  Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.