Neuroethics & Law Blog

Call for Abstracts: Brain Matters! Vancouver Conference

Brain Matters! Vancouver invites abstract for the Brain Science and Social Responsibility Conference.

Join the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in expanding the conversation about the ethical, legal and social implications of brain science for promoting brain health and enabling well-being. The meeting will be held from March 12 to 14, 2014 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Abstracts accepted until August 30, 2013.

Please click here for more information on submissions.

Bioethics Prof. Job Opening: NYU Abu Dhabi

This position for an assistant or associate professor requires a Ph.D. or a J.D. Download NYUAD Bioethics Ad. 

"Seven Ways Neuroscience Aids Law"

Recently Posted on SSRN (and forthcoming at 121, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Vatican City (2013))

"Seven Ways Neuroscience Aids Law"

Owen D. Jones, Vanderbilt University - Law School & Dept. of Biological Sciences

Rapid advances in neuroscience have raised hopes in law, perhaps inevitably, that new techniques for revealing brain function may help to answer perennial questions about the sources, limits, and implications of human behavior, mental states, and psychology. As a consequence, lawyers have sharply increased proffers of neuroscientific evidence in both civil and criminal litigation, and have also invoked neuroscience as relevant to many doctrinal and policy reforms. These new developments make it essential for just legal systems to evaluate and separate legitimate from illegitimate uses of neuroscience. As part of that effort, this forthcoming essay identifies and illustrates seven distinct contexts in which neuroscience – skeptically evaluated but also carefully understood – can be useful to law. The essay is based on a talk delivered at The Vatican, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, November 2012.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Last Edition's Most Popular Article: The Problem with the Neuroscience Backlash, The New Yorker In The Popular Press Novel neurotechnologies: intervening in the brain, Nuffield Council on Bioethics Madness Made Them Great, Slate Viewpoint: Did our brains evolve to foolishly follow celebrities?, BBC News Can neuroscience really give us insight into animal minds?, Practical Ethics Blog Breast-Fed Babies Achieve Higher Social Status, Time Health & Family Expectation alone turns a rubber hand into a 'real' one, New Scientist  Michael Jackson Went 60 Days Without 'Real' Sleep, Expert Says, Huffington Post Self-Disciplined People Are Happier (and Not as Deprived as You Think), Time Healtland Global rise in new 'legal highs' - UN World Drug Report, BBC News New Moms May Experience OCD Symptoms, Scientific American A Secret Society of Cells Runs Your Brain, Scientific American Can Caresses Protect the Brain from Stroke?, Scientific American How a Car Crash Can Give You a Foreign Accent, Time Health & Family Susan Greenfield: What makes us human, BBC News WATCH: Boy Hears His Dad’s Voice for First Time, Time Health  Unique Brain Pattern Could Predict Autism in Youngest Children, Time Healthland  Whole human brain mapped in 3D, Nature News Are You Happy or Horny? A Brain Scan Can Tell, Time Healthland How the Hum of a Coffee Shop Can Boost Creativity, New York Times Well Blog From the Academic Literature: Neuroenhancing public health, Journal of Medical Ethics A causal link between prediction errors, dopamine neurons and learning, Nature Neuroscience Anatomical correlates of quality of life: Evidence from voxel-based morphometry, Human Brain Mapping Irony comprehension: Social conceptual knowledge and emotional response, Human Brain Mapping Brain Regions That Represent Amodal Conceptual Knowledge, The Journal of Neuroscience Amygdala Activation for Eye Contact Despite Complete Cortical Blindness, The Journal of Neuroscience Disruption of alcohol-related memories by mTORC1 inhibition prevents relapse, Nature Neuroscience  Neuroscience, Mental Privacy, and the Law, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy  Essential Role of the Mushroom Body in Context-Dependent CO2 Avoidance in Drosophila, Current Biology

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.

Implanted Earphone

I'm not sure how well all of this works just yet, but this guy has implanted a magnet in his ear that he plans to use as some kind of tiny speaker. He says he eventually wants to connect it to an ultrasound device to give him some rough ability to echolocate objects (because he has reason to think he may lose vision in both eyes). He also says the implant might be used with a directional microphone to listen to a conversation across the room (making Google Glass seem tame by comparison: you generally know when someone is wearing Google Glass). No word yet if test proctors are being trained to look for suspicious scarring around the ear.

"Neuroscience, Mental Privacy, and the Law"

Recently Posted on SSRN:

"Neuroscience, Mental Privacy, and the Law"

FRANCIS X. SHEN, University of Minnesota Law School

Will brain science be used by the government to access the most private of spaces — our minds — against our wills? Such scientific tools would have tremendous privacy implications if the government suddenly used brain science to more effectively read minds during police interrogations, criminal trials, and even routine traffic stops. Pundits and scholars alike have thus explored the constitutional protections that citizens, defendants, and witnesses would require to be safe from such mind searching.

Future-oriented thinking about where brain science may lead us can make for great entertainment and can also be useful for forward-thinking policy development. But only to a point. In this Article, I reconsider these concerns about the use of brain science to infer mental functioning. The primary message of this Article is straightforward: “Don’t panic!” Current constitutional protections are sufficiently nimble to allow for protection against involuntary government machine-aided neuroimaging mind reading. The chief challenge emerging from advances in brain science is not the insidious collection of brain data, but how brain data is (mis)used and (mis)interpreted in legal and policy settings by the government and private actors alike.

The Article proceeds in five parts. Part I reviews the use of neuroscientific information in legal settings generally, discussing both the recent rise of neurolaw as well as an often overlooked history of brain science and law that stretches back decades. Part II evaluates concerns about mental privacy and argues for distinguishing between the inferences to be drawn from the data and the methods by which the data is collected. Part III assesses current neuroscience techniques for lie detection and mind reading. Part IV then evaluates the relevant legal protections available in the criminal justice system. I argue that the weight of scholarly opinion is correct: The Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment likely both provide protections against involuntary use of machine-aided neuroimaging mind reading evidence. Part V explores other possible machine-aided neuroimaging mind reading contexts where these protections might not apply in the same way. The Article then briefly concludes.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Last Edition's Most Popular Article: How do neuroscientists integrate their knowledge of the brain with their religious and spiritual beliefs?, The Neuroethics Blog In The Popular Press The Problem with the Neuroscience Backlash, The New Yorker How poverty might change the brain, CNN Health New Nerve and Muscle Interfaces Aid Wounded Warrior Amputees, DARPA Do rising rates of antidepressant prescription translate into lower rates of suicide? Evidence from 29 countries, PLoS BLogs Do-it-yourself brain stimulation has scientists worried as healthy people try to make their minds work better, National Post How Money Makes You Lie and Cheat, Time Health & Family Why Don’t Cops Believe Rape Victims?, Slate Neuroscience: Rise of the neurocrats, Nature Books and Arts Concussion and Alzheimer’s Patients Show Similar Brain Changes, Time Health & Family A Conversation on "MINDLESS NEUROSCIENCE", THe Neurocritic Ethics: the questions posed by our bionic bodies, The Guardian A biological basis for free will, New Scientist  Trust your memory? Maybe you shouldn't, CNN Health Cheating Ourselves of Sleep, New York Times Well Blog Can Human Brain Tissue Make Mice Smarter?, The Neuroethics Blog Clapping reveals applause is a 'social contagion', BBC News Brain Can Plan Actions Toward Things the Eye Doesn't See, Science Daily From the Academic Literature: Biotechnology, Justice and Health, Journal of Practical Ethics Behavioral and biochemical dissociation of arousal and homeostatic sleep need influenced by prior wakeful experience in mice, PNAS Aβ induces astrocytic glutamate release, extrasynaptic NMDA receptor activation, and synaptic loss, PNAS Pharmacological brake-release of mRNA translation enhances cognitive memory, eLife Observing Victimization Augments Attribution of Minds to Vegetative Patients, Robots, and the Dead, Psychological Science  T'ain't What You Say, It's the Way That You Say It—Left Insula and Inferior Frontal Cortex Work in Interaction with Superior Temporal Regions to Control the Performance of Vocal Impersonations, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience  Identifying Emotions on the Basis of Neural Activation, PLoS One The Impact of Neuroimages in the Sentencing Phase of Capital Trials, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies Recombinant Probes for Visualizing Endogenous Synaptic Proteins in Living Neurons, Neuron Neural Correlates of Risk Perception during Real-Life Risk Communication, The Journal of Neuroscience  Amygdala Activation for Eye Contact Despite Complete Cortical Blindness, The Journal of Neuroscience  Distinct behavioural and network correlates of two interneuron types in prefrontal cortex, Nature  The influence of neuroscience on US Supreme Court decisions about adolescents' criminal culpability, Nature Reviews Neuroscience

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.

"The Pace of Modern Life" (xkcd comic)

You don't have to read every word of this xkcd comic to be reminded that new technologies tend to be perceived as dangerous threats to familiar ways of life:

"The Impact of Neuroimages in the Sentencing Phase of Capital Trials"

 Recently posted to SSRN (and forthcoming in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies):

"The Impact of Neuroimages in the Sentencing Phase of Capital Trials"

Michael J. Saks

, Arizona State University (ASU) - Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law; N. J. Schweitzer, Arizona State University; Eyal Aharoni, University of California, Santa Barbara - Department of Psychology; and Kent Kiehl, University of New Mexico

Although recent research has found that neurological expert testimony is more persuasive than other kinds of expert and non-expert evidence, no impact has been found for neuroimages beyond that of neurological evidence sans images. Those findings hold true in the context of a mens rea defense and various forms of insanity defenses. The present studies test whether neuroimages afford heightened impact in the penalty phase of capital murder trials.

Two mock jury experiments (n=825 and n=882) were conducted online using nationally representative samples of persons who were jury-eligible and death-qualified. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions varying the defendant’s diagnosis (psychopathy, schizophrenia, normal), type of expert evidence supporting the diagnosis (clinical, genetic, neurological sans images, neurological with images), evidence of future dangerousness (high, low), and whether the proponent of the expert evidence was the prosecution (arguing aggravation) or the defense (arguing mitigation).

For defendants diagnosed as psychopathic, neuroimages reduced judgments of responsibility and sentences of death. For defendants diagnosed as schizophrenic, neuroimages increased judgments of responsibility; non-image neurological evidence decreased death sentences and judgments of responsibility and dangerousness. All else equal, psychopaths were more likely to be sentenced to death than schizophrenics. When experts opined that defendant was dangerous, sentences of death increased. A backfire effect was found such that the offering party produced the opposite result than that being argued for when the expert evidence was clinical, genetic, or non-image neurological. But when the expert evidence included neuroimages, jurors moved in the direction argued by counsel.

"The Future of the Law of Armed Conflict: Ostriches, Butterflies, and Nanobots"

On Wednesday, the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute is hosting an online lecture that may interest some readers. The lecture will be based on this paper by Eric Jensen. See here for details.

Farah and Loftus Profiles

CNN profiles Martha Farah here and Elizabeth Loftus here.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Last Edition's Most Popular Article: This Is Your Brain on Coffee, New York Times Well Blog In The Popular Press Heartbeat used to generate out-of-body experience, NewScientist Why Music Makes Our Brain Sing, New York Times Sunday Review How the brain controls a 'mind machine', BBC News How do neuroscientists integrate their knowledge of the brain with their religious and spiritual beliefs?, The Neuroethics Blog The Neurobiology behind a Sense of Place, Brain Blogger What gives the human mind its edge?, New Scientist  Fish on Prozac Prove Anxious, Antisocial, Aggressive, Scientific American Brain scan predicts best therapy for depression, Nature News Dad's Life Stress Exposure Leaves Mark On Sperm, Can Affect Offspring Brain Development, Science Daily Your Hidden Censor: What Your Mind Will Not Let You See, Scientific American A Sense of Adventure May Distinguish Identical Twins From Each Other, Time Health & Family When Cleaning fMRI Data is a Nuisance, Neuroskeptic  Infants Are Born to Talk, Scientific American China's Alzheimer's time bomb revealed, New Scientist  Even A Small Change In Habits Helps Fend Off Stroke, National Public Radio Shots Blog Hands-Free Gadgets Don't Mean Risk-Free Driving, National Public Radio Shots Blog Really good baseball players don’t just “keep their eye on the ball”, Discover Magazine Blogs: Seriously, Science? Brain's 'Dark Side' as Key to Cocaine Addiction, Science Daily Video Gamers Really Do See More: Gamers Capture More Information Faster for Visual Decision-Making, Science Daily Extreme therapy: Inside a hospital for dangerous minds, New Scientist  When giving reasons leads to worse decisions, Mind Hacks Hey kid, what do you know?, Johns Hopkins Magazine What happened to U.S. mental health care after deinstitutionalization?, Washington Post Why Wanting Expensive Things Makes Us So Much Happier Than Buying Them, The Atlantic  Layered Floating Paintings Inspired by CT Scans, My Modern Met From the Academic Literature: Optogenetic Stimulation of Lateral Orbitofronto-Striatal Pathway Suppresses Compulsive Behaviors, Science  Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology Pallidal Deep Brain Stimulation Modulates Afferent Fibers, Efferent Fibers, and Glia, The Journal of Neuroscience Mirror or Megaphone?: How relationships between narcissism and social networking site use differ on Facebook and Twitter, Computers in Human Behavior Soccer Heading Is Associated with White Matter Microstructural and Cognitive Abnormalities, Radiology Double deletion of melanocortin 4 receptors and SAPAP3 corrects compulsive behavior and obesity in mice, PNAS fMRI responses to Jung's Word Association Test: implications for theory, treatment and research, Journal of Analytical Psychology A Behavioral Demonstration of Overconfidence in Judgment, Psychological Science Chronic Antidepressant Treatment Impairs the Acquisition of Fear Extinction, Biological Psychiatry  Dynamics of Hippocampal Neurogenesis in Adult Humans, Cell Sociodemographic, psychiatric and somatic risk factors for suicide: a Swedish national cohort study, Psychological Medicine

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.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Last Edition's Most Popular Article: Unexcited? There May Be a Pill for That, New York Times In The Popular Press Oxytocin, the Love Hormone, Also Keeps People Apart, Scientific American WWII Drug: The German Granddaddy of Crystal Meth, Spiegel Online The Cyborg Era Begins, Science Compulsive Behavior Triggered and Treated, Nature News DARPA's Crazy Mind-Controlled Prosthetics Have Gotten Even Better, Gizmodo Software that knows you're suffering: How SentiMetrix sees PTSD with artificial intelligence, Huffington Post Why Is Angry Birds So Addictive?, Scientific American Mind-controlled exoskeleton lets paralysed people walk, New Scientist  Mapping the mind with nanotechnology, The Guardian When Trick Questions Become False Memories, Discover Magazine Neuroskeptic The World Outside: Experiencing the world through the eyes of autism, Wellcome Trust Blog How to make a digital human brain, Fox News Kids experience schadenfreude by age four, maybe earlier, Research Digest Gene switches make prairie voles fall in love, Nature News Baby boomers are killing themselves at an alarming rate, raising question: Why?, Washington Post A Life With Others…In Your Head?, The Neuroethics Blog This Is Your Brain on Coffee, New York Times Well Blog Toy helicopter guided by power of thought, Nature News On Being an Octopus, Boston Review This Man Is Not a Cyborg. Yet., New York Times If Our Gadgets Could Measure Our Emotions, New York Times From the Academic Literature: The challenge of crafting policy for do-it-yourself brain stimulation, Journal of Medical Ethics Bilateral stereotactic anterior capsulotomy for obsessive-compulsive disorder: long-term follow-up, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, & Psychiatry  Feeling Better But Doing Worse: Effects of Facebook Self-Presentation on Implicit Self-Esteem and Cognitive Task Performance, Media Psychology Developing a Comprehensive and Comparative Questionnaire for Measuring Personality in Chimpanzees Using a Simultaneous Top-Down/Bottom-Up Design, American Journal of Primatology  Neuroethics in Spain: Neurological Determinism or Moral Freedom?, Neuroethics Altered Insula Response to Sweet Taste Processing After Recovery From Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa, American Journal of Psychiatry Females Scan More Than Males: A Potential Mechanism for Sex Differences in Recognition Memory, Psychological Science Brain structural abnormalities in Doberman pinschers with canine compulsive disorder, Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry  Impairing existing declarative memory in humans by disrupting reconsolidation, PNAS Neural correlates of mindfulness meditation-related anxiety relief, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

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.

Neuroenhancement Program in Tubingen

This program may interest some readers:

TÜBINGEN INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL (TISS) 2013

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Neuroenhancement — What could we do and what ought we to do?

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-   September 29th to October 2nd, 2013

-   Cloister Heiligkreuztal

Topic

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This year’s summer school will focus on the possibilities and perils of

neuroenhancement from the perspectives of neurosciences, medicine and

philosophy. We want to explore what could be achieved through

neuroenhancements in theory, what can be done already, and where to draw

the line.

Reminder: INS Annual Meeting

A reminder from the International Neuroethics Society:

The International Neuroethics Society announces its 5^th Annual Meeting (a satellite of the Society for Neuroscience Meeting) November 7 & 8 San Diego.  

More information at: http://www.neuroethicssociety.org/2013-annual-meeting.

Listen to INS Member Molly Crockett cordially invite you https://ns.memberclicks.net/assets/molly%20crocket%20recording.wav.

Bring your friends and family to the open-to-the-public program November 7 on Neurogaming: What’s Neuroscience and Ethics Got to Do with It?  

Register for the meeting on November 8 at http://www.neuroethicssociety.org/2013-annual-meeting-registration The speaker lineup includes Barbara Sahakian & John Pickard, University of Cambridge, Julian Savulescu, University of Oxford, Patricia Churchland, University of California-San Diego, Molly Crockett, University of Zurich, Jens Clausen, University of Tubingen, Lisa Claydon, Bristol Law School, University of the West England, Joe Fins & Niko Schiff, Weill Cornell Medical College, Holly Moore, Columbia University, New York State Psychiatric Institute, Mauricio Delgado, Rutgers University, Catherine Sebastian, Royal Holloway, University of London, J. David Jentsch, University of California – Los Angeles, and Honorable Robert Trentacosta, Presiding Judge of San Diego Superior Court.

See you in San Diego!