Neuroethics & Law Blog

Cox et al. on Long-Acting Methylphenidate & Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Long-Acting Methylphenidate Reduces Collision Rates of Young Adult Drivers With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder by Daniel J. Cox, Margaret Davis, Amori Yee Mikami, Harsimran Singh, Richard L. Merkel, et al. has been recently published in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology:

Abstract

This study investigated whether methylphenidate delivered through a long-acting transdermal system (MTS) would reduce collision rates of young adult drivers with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Seventeen young adults completing the study (mean [SD] age, 20.82 [2.40] years; 14 men and 13 white) met the following inclusion criteria: ADHD diagnoses but not routinely taking ADHD medication, previously responsive to ADHD medication, active drivers with more than 1 collision or citation in the past 2 years, and no significant comorbidities. In this open-labeled, crossover design drivers were randomly assigned either to the no-medication condition for 3 months and then MTS for 3 months or to the reverse sequence. In-car video monitoring of routine driving occurred during these 6 months. At baseline and after each condition, participants completed the Conners Adult ADHD Rating Scale and the Cox Assessment of Risky Driving Scale, and their blood pressure, heart rate, and body weight were monitored.

Compared with the no-medication condition, participants in the MTS condition self-reported fewer total ADHD (P < 0.04) and inattentive symptoms (P = 0.014) and a trend for risky driving behaviors (P = 0.059) and had fewer video-recorded collisions (P < 0.005) and other problematic driving events. There were no significant changes in blood pressure, heart rate, or body weight across conditions or any significant skin reactions to the MTS patch.

This is the first study demonstrating that long-acting methylphenidate improves activities of daily living among young adults with ADHD. Specifically, methylphenidate improved safety in routine driving while reducing ADHD symptoms with minimal adverse effects.

$5 Million for "The Immortality Project"

This project, funded by the Templeton Foundation, will be led by UC Riverside philosophy professor John Martin Fischer. According to the Washington Post, it "may be one of the country’s biggest investments in looking scientifically at how we view death, what role it plays in our psyches, whether our brains are hard-wired to experience an afterlife." (Wait, huh? Hard-wired to experience an after-life?) I'm not sure what the Washington Post author means by that last part, but that aside, the project will explore lots of questions that will be of interest to neuroethicists; see here for more.

Neuroscience Journalist Jonah Lehrer Resigns from New Yorker

Jonah Lehrer, author and neuroscience journalist, has resigned from the New Yorker, admitting that his recent book on creativity contains fabricated quotes. Here's the mea culpa via a New York Times blog:

“Three weeks ago, I received an email from journalist Michael Moynihan asking about Bob Dylan quotes in my book ‘Imagine,’ ” Mr. Lehrer said in a statement. “The quotes in question either did not exist, were unintentional misquotations, or represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes. But I told Mr. Moynihan that they were from archival interview footage provided to me by Dylan’s representatives. This was a lie spoken in a moment of panic. When Mr. Moynihan followed up, I continued to lie, and say things I should not have said.”

“The lies are over now. I understand the gravity of my position. I want to apologize to everyone I have let down, especially my editors and readers. I also owe a sincere apology to Mr. Moynihan. I will do my best to correct the record and ensure that my misquotations and mistakes are fixed. I have resigned my position as staff writer at The New Yorker.”

For much more, see the article in Tablet Magazine.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

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Subscribe to our mailing list 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.

Fellowships at Harvard's Petrie-Flom Center

The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard Law School is seeking candidates for its 2013-2015 Academic Fellowship Program. I've pasted some information below but see here for more information:

PROGRAM:

Petrie-Flom fellowships are full-time two-year residential appointments starting in the summer of 2013. Fellows devote their full time to scholarly activities in furtherance of their individual research agendas. The Center does not impose teaching obligations on fellows, although fellows have often taught a seminar on the subject of their research in the Spring of their second year. In addition to pursuing their research and writing, fellows are expected to attend and participate in research workshops on health law, bioethics, and biotechnology, and other events designated by the Center. Fellows are also expected to help plan and execute a small number of events in their field of expertise during their tenure, and to present their research in at least one of a variety of forums, including academic seminars, speaker panels, or conferences. Finally, the Center also relies on fellows to provide opportunities for interested students to consult with them about their areas of research, and to directly mentor our Student Fellows.

Colorado Shooting Suspect Was Neuroscience Ph.D. Student

There is such a thing as bad publicity.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

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Subscribe to our mailing list 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.

"Democratic Inclusion, Cognitive Development, and the Age of Electoral Majority"

Recently Posted to SSRN:

"Democratic Inclusion, Cognitive Development, and the Age of Electoral Majority" 
Brooklyn Law Review, Vol. 77, No. 4, p. 1, 2012

VIVIAN EULALIA HAMILTON, William & Mary Law School
 The age of electoral majority has declined over time and across the globe. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the average voting age worldwide was just under twenty-four; today, it is just over seventeen. More than a dozen nations have recently lowered local, state, or national voting ages to sixteen. Others, including Australia and the U.K., are seriously considering doing the same. Yet the United States, which holds itself out as a beacon of democratic participation, is not currently considering the electoral inclusion of some cohort of its younger citizens. For a number of compelling reasons, it should be.

Classic democratic theory describes the decision making of the ideal citizen-voter as both well-informed and rational. The decision making of the actual citizen-voter, however, is often neither. For reasons detailed in this article, I argue for a conception of electoral competence (1) informed by behavioral decision theory and studies of voter decision making; and (2) characterized by the reliable attainment of the relevant cognitive processes (cognition/learning, information processing, and decision making) and maturity of judgment.

Converging research from several disciplines within the developmental sciences has established a reliable connection between age range and the attainment of certain cognitive competencies. Research in developmental psychology and cognitive and social neuroscience explains that/why adolescents make notoriously bad decisions under certain conditions. It also explains that by mid-adolescence, when making unpressured, considered decisions — like those required to privately cast a ballot in an election that has unfolded over time — their cognitive competencies are mature.

States can thus no longer justify the electoral exclusion of mid-adolescents by claiming that they lack the relevant competencies. Absent other legitimate bases for their exclusion, I argue that the democratic presumption of inclusion obliges the states to adjust downward the age of electoral majority.

"The Eyes Don't Have It: Lie Detection and Neuro-Linguistic Programming"

The Eyes Don't Have It: Lie Detection and Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Richard Wiseman, Caroline Watt, Leanne ten Brinke, Stephen Porter, Sara-Louise Couper, et al. has been recently published in PLoS ONE:

Abstract

Proponents of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) claim that certain eye-movements are reliable indicators of lying. According to this notion, a person looking up to their right suggests a lie whereas looking up to their left is indicative of truth telling. Despite widespread belief in this claim, no previous research has examined its validity. In Study 1 the eye movements of participants who were lying or telling the truth were coded, but did not match the NLP patterning. In Study 2 one group of participants were told about the NLP eye-movement hypothesis whilst a second control group were not. Both groups then undertook a lie detection test. No significant differences emerged between the two groups. Study 3 involved coding the eye movements of both liars and truth tellers taking part in high profile press conferences. Once again, no significant differences were discovered. Taken together the results of the three studies fail to support the claims of NLP. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

"Neuroscience Meets Cryptography" with Manchurian Candidate Undertones

Here's the introduction to a piece in New Scientist today:

EVEN the most sophisticated electronic security can be defeated by forcing someone to reveal a password. But what if sensitive information could be stored in your brain in such a way that you couldn't consciously disclose it, no matter how hard you tried?

The rest is less flashy but still interesting. I say it has Manchurian Candidate undertones because a person could potentially "know" an important password without realizing it.

The piece summarizes work in a new paper by Hristo Bojinov et al. entitled, Neuroscience Meets Cryptography:Designing Crypto Primitives Secure Against Rubber Hose Attacks.

 

"Immune Drug Shows Promise for Alzheimer's"

Shirley S. Wang writes in the WSJ about impressive but small-sample-size research using intravenous immunoglobulin therapy to treat Alzheimer's disease.

"Review: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman"

Recently Posted to SSRN:

"Review: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman" 
Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research and Writing, Forthcoming

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EDWIN S. FRUEHWALD, affiliation not provided to SSRN
 This article reviews Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman for an audience of lawyers, legal scholars, and legal educators. Creating law and teaching law require accurate models of human behavior and how the mind works. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Noble Prize winner Daniel Kahneman provides a new model of human behavior and how the mind works that will change how we undertake these endeavors. Everyone in the legal field and legal education needs to be familiar with Kahneman’s ideas.

Schweitzer and Saks on Jurors and Scientific Causation

Recently Posted to SSRN:

"Jurors and Scientific Causation: What Don’t They Know, and What Can Be Done About it?" 
Jurimetrics, Forthcoming

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N. J. SCHWEITZER, Arizona State University
 MICHAEL J. SAKS, Arizona State University (ASU) - Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law
Past attempts to better equip jurors to comprehend scientific expert testimony have shown little success. This paper describes a new approach to training jurors to be better consumers of such evidence. In addition to assessing how well can jurors differentiate between valid and flawed experimental research when that research is presented through expert testimony in a civil trial, we describe an experiment that tests the efficacy of a new educational intervention designed to enable jurors to more capably evaluate causal scientific research. The intervention, which is brief, not case-specific, and transportable into trials of other causal issues, teaches jurors to understand and identify the three requisites of causal inference: temporal precedence, co-variation, non-spuriousness. Using 182 adult citizens as jurors, in a fairly realistic videotaped mock trial we presented a toxic tort trial in which the defendant’s product is alleged to cause a lung disease. The critical evidence is a study, presented by an expert, which tests that relationship through either a properly designed experiment or one in which one or another of the key elements of causal inference is absent. Consistent with previous researchers’ findings, untrained jurors were unable to distinguish the well designed experiment from any of the defectively designed experiments. However, trained jurors were better able to assess the quality of the research, and these more accurate assessments were reflected in their verdicts.

On Whether Pistorius Has an Unfair Advantage at the Olympics

For one take on the therapy-enhancement divide, see this story in The Telegraph.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

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Subscribe to our mailing list 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.