My Brain Made Me

March 11, 2007 6:06 AM

Neurolaw- The Brain on the Stand
posted by Gyan (8 comments total)

Related: Neuroscience and the Law: Brain, Mind, and the Scales of Justice (PDF summary)
posted by Gyan at 6:06 AM on March 11, 2007

I haven't read the article yet but I love the illustrations accompanying it.
posted by The Straightener at 6:45 AM on March 11, 2007

Fascinating topic Gyan! Forensic Neuroscience, definitely interesting. It's a topic which interests me intensely. And I agree with The Straightener about the good illustrations.

More from the forensic neuroscientist, Daniel A. Martell.

Forensic neuroscience on trial.

Just last night I came across a recent article about the brain and the law. Shades of 1984 and Brazil.

The brain scan that can read people's intentions.

"A team of world-leading neuroscientists has developed a powerful technique that allows them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act."
posted by nickyskye at 8:15 AM on March 11, 2007

The NYTimes Science section is also running an outstanding article on Dark Energy.

Out There. Dark energy, an invisible, undetectable force that seems to break all the rules of physics, may be about to redefine the universe.

posted by stbalbach at 9:23 AM on March 11, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I haven't read the article yet but I love the illustrations accompanying it.

Have you heard of [Shiny things | Ritalin | Fark]? You might like it.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:09 AM on March 11, 2007

Jones and Marois talked excitedly about the implications of their experiments for the legal system. If they discovered a significant gap between people’s hard-wired sense of how severely certain crimes should be punished and the actual punishments assigned by law, federal sentencing guidelines might be revised, on the principle that the law shouldn’t diverge too far from deeply shared beliefs.

I don't quite get why they would need the brain imaging to do this, I mean that part of their research was developed by simply reading scenarios to people and letting them press a button, one through nine to determine how much punishment they should receive. They could have done that without the headset.
posted by delmoi at 12:55 PM on March 11, 2007

Fascinating article, Gyan. Thanks.
posted by homunculus at 2:57 PM on March 11, 2007

I skipped this article in the magazine, but I'm glad I read it here. It's a very cogent precis of the current state of neurology and brain imaging, with a good initial consideration of the implications of what we know and what we think we know. Some of the facile reduction of mind to brain by the working neurologists is a bit startling, and there's plenty of creepy utopian (in the worst sense) thinking in the legal community profiled here.

Thanks a lot for this.
posted by OmieWise at 8:00 AM on March 14, 2007