Neuroethics & Law Blog

"Predicting Violent Behavior: What Can Neuroscience Add?"

Recently posted on SSRN:  "Predicting Violent Behavior: What Can Neuroscience Add?" 

RUSSELL A. POLDRACK, Stanford University - Psychology

JOHN MONAHAN, University of Virginia School of Law

PETER B. IMREY, Case Western Reserve University - Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University - Cleveland Clinic Dept. of Quantitative Health Sciences/JJN3

VALERIE F. REYNA, Cornell University

MARCUS E. RAICHLE, Washington University School of Medicine

DAVID L. FAIGMAN, University of California Hastings College of the Law

JOSHUA W. BUCKHOLTZ, Harvard University

The ability to accurately predict violence and other forms of serious antisocial behavior would provide important societal benefits, and there is substantial enthusiasm for the potential predictive accuracy of neuroimaging techniques. Here, we review the current status of violence prediction using actuarial and clinical methods, and assess the current state of neuroprediction. We then outline several questions that need to be addressed by future studies of neuroprediction if neuroimaging and other neuroscientific markers are to be successfully translated into public policy.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Tylenol May Help Ease the Pain of Hurt Feelings, NPR   Even if genes affect intelligence, we can’t engineer cleverness, Aeon Neurolaw and Order, BBC Curious Orangutans, Raised by Humans, Do Better on Cognitive Tests, The New York Times It's no Christmas No 1, but AI-generated song brings festive cheer to researchers, The Guardian Why Your Brain Has Trouble Bailing Out Of A Bad Plan, NPR: Shots Scientists ‘Inject’ Information Into Monkeys’ Brains, The New York Times The Neuroscience of Changing Your Mind, Scientific American  The Power of Negative Thinking, The Atlantic AI algorithms to prevent suicide gain traction, Nature News The Downside of Having an Almost Perfect Memory, TIME Neural Networks Are Learning What to Remember and What to Forget, MIT Technology Review The minds of plants, Aeon Neuroethics in the News Recap: Psychosis, Unshared Reality, or Clairaudiance? The Neuroethics Blog How Labels Can Affect People's Personalities And Potential, NPR: Hidden Brain How Our Bodies Sense the World is Misunderstood, Gizmodo Social Notworking: Is Generation Smartphone Really More Prone to Unhappiness? Scientific American    Repairing the neural highway, Nature Outline Circadian mood variations in Twitter content, Brain and Neuroscience Advances Bioelectronics herald the rise of the cyborg, Science Taking a direct route to the brain, Science Longitudinal interactions between brain and cognitive measures on reading development from 6 months to 14 years, Neuropsychologia Meta-Analysis of Action Video Game Impact on Perceptual, Attentional, and Cognitive Skills, Psychological Bulletin

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)

Human Head Transplants Are About to Happen in China: But Where Are the Bodies Coming From?, Newsweek   AI-Controlled Brain Implants for Mood Disorders Tested in People, Nature The Algorithm That Catches Serial Killers, The Atlantic For Anesthesiologist, Easing Pain and Erasing Memories is All in a Day's Work, NPR Watch Amputee Monkeys Control Robotic Arms by Changing Brains, Gizmodo Teenage Brains Can’t Tell What’s Important and What Isn’t, New Scientist Love It or Hate It, Christmas Music Has a Big Impact on Our Health, NBC News Robots Get an ‘Undo’ Button That Could Help Them Learn Faster, MIT Technology Review Saving Lives via Text Message, NPR Nice Brains Finish Last, Scientific American Smiling Can Trick Your Brain into Happiness — and Boost Your Health, NBC News Visiting Scholarships at the UPenn Center for Neuroscience & Society, University of Pennsylvania   The Makings of the Primate Brain, Science An Opening for Humor in Melancholy, Nature Neuroscience Neuromodulation: On the Alert, Nature Review Neuroscience Molecular and Cellular Reorganization of Neural Circuits in the Human Lineage, Science Are Cocaine-Seeking “Habits” Necessary for the Development of Addiction-Like Behavior in Rats?, The Journal of Neuroscience I Had No Other Option: Women, Electroconvulsive Therapy, and Informed Consent, International Journal of Mental Health Nursing

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.

 

"Psychedelic Medicine for Mental Illness and Drug Abuse: Overcoming Social and Legal Obstacles"

Recently posted on SSRN: "Psychedelic Medicine for Mental Illness and Drug Abuse: Overcoming Social and Legal Obstacles" 

MASON MARKS, Yale Law School, Yale University - Information Society Project

Mental illness is a public health crisis. Millions of Americans suffer through their days crippled by symptoms of mood, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders. These conditions take large social and economic tolls on our communities. However, the medicines used to treat them have remained largely unchanged for over fifty years. Though helpful to many people, the relative ineffectiveness of traditional drugs is prompting patients and physicians to seek alternatives including psychedelic compounds such as ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA, and DMT. These drugs showed therapeutic potential in the mid-twentieth century until the U.S. War on Drugs snuffed out all research. Now, having few alternatives, scientists are revisiting psychedelics as treatments for mental illness.

This article is the first comprehensive review of the social and legal obstacles to developing psychedelic medicines. It argues that the current mental health and opioid abuse crises demand exploration of their therapeutic potential. With subtle modifications to state and federal drug law, psychedelics could be thoroughly studied and made available to patients under carefully controlled conditions. Possible pathways include working within the existing federal regulatory framework to gain FDA approval for psychedelics; removing psychedelics from the DEA list of Schedule I controlled substances; reducing federal restrictions on psychedelics research without changing their Schedule I status; decriminalizing psychedelics at the state level; creating state governed systems for regulating psychedelics; and implementing state-sponsored psychedelics research programs. Some approaches may be counterproductive or have counterintuitive results. Recent state marijuana reform efforts could serve as a roadmap for amending the laws governing psychedelics. Ultimately, creative solutions that promote collaboration between state and federal government may be most likely to succeed.