Schedule
Oct 5: Introduction to main topics: Responsibility, competency, prediction of criminal behavior, and the neural basis of law and punishment
Reading
- Neuroscience and the Law, D.M. Eagleman, Houston Lawyer
- Neurolaw New York Times Magazine
Oct 12: Background: Genetics, Behavior and Law
- Behavioral Genetics and Crime by Owen Jones
- Caspi and Moffitt (2006) Gene–environment interactions in psychiatry: joining forces with neuroscience. Nature Neuroscience.
- Optional reading: Caspi et al (2003). Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene. Science 301, 386
[No class on October 19th]
Oct 26: The frontal cortex and limbic system: the neuroscience of morality, aggression and empathy
Reading
- Sapolsky, R. The frontal cortex and the criminal justice system. Phil Trans Royal Soc B. 359(1451): 1787-1796
- Greene J, Haidt J (2002). How (and where) does moral judgment work? Trends Cogn Sci. 2002 Dec 1;6(12):517-523
Nov 3 (TUES - note change of day): Mental illness, Antisocial behavior, and the insanity defense
Reading
- First 11 pages of Chapter 1 in Crime, punishment, and mental illness: law and the behavioral sciences in conflict by Patricia E. Erickson and Steven K. Erickson. Rutgers University Press, 2008.
- Kiehl, K.A. (2006). A cognitive neuroscience perspective on psychopathy: Evidence for paralimbic system dysfunction. Psychiatry Research, 142, 107-128.
Nov 9: New technologies and courts of law
- Yang YY, Glenn AL, Raine A (2008). Brain Abnormalities in Antisocial Individuals: Implications for the Law. Behavioral Sciences and the Law. 26: 65-83. [NB: Only read the last section of the paper, beginning with "The Use of Brain Imaging in Legal Defenses"]
- Bles and Haynes (2008). Detecting concealed information using brain-imaging technology. Neurocase,14:1,82-92.
- Nature Neuroscience Editorial: Deceiving the Law
- "Duped" - New Yorker article on fMRI lie detection - Margaret Talbot
Nov 16: Predicting recidivism and how to have meaningful rehabilitation
- Profiling extraordinary acts of crime: Secret Service report on School Shootings – can we predict who will become a killer?
- Criminal profiling: Dangerous Minds - New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell
- Spadling (1998). Florida's chemical castration law: a return to the Dark Ages
- Weinberger et al (2005). Impact of surgical castration on sexual recidivism
Nov 23: Theories of punishment (what is the purpose of our criminal system?) and how juries make decisions (to what extent does it involve bloodlust?)
- Death Penalty Deters Murders - News story
- Levitt SD (2004). Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors That Explain the Decline and Six That Do Not. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(1): 163-190.
Dec 7: Final projects due
Course Information
Neuroscience and Law seminar series
Time: Mondays 5 - 7 pm
October 5 - Dec 7, 2009
Instructor:
Email: eagleman-AT-bcm.edu
Phone: 713-798-6699 or 713-798-6224
Who can take the course:
This course is offered to graduate and medical students from BCM and UTH, law students from University of Houston, undergraduates from Rice, and practicing physicians, scientists and lawyers.
Course Summary
This course addresses how new discoveries in neuroscience will intersect with the making of law, the punishment of criminals, and the development of new rehabilitation strategies. The readings will bring together a unique conjunction of neurobiology, legal scholarship, and policy making. The goals of the course will be to facilitate an understanding of the neurobiological underpinnings of behaviors that are subject to legal consequences for individuals and groups, and using this emerging base of scientific information to design modern, evidence-based policy.
Emerging questions at the interface of law and neuroscience include: Is it a legitimate defense to claim that a tumor or a brain injury ‘made you do it’? In what ways are the brains of minors similar or different from adult brains in their capacity for decision-making and impulse control – and how do those similarities/differences help inform policy for punishment and rehabilitation? Can modern technologies such as structural and/or functional brain imaging be leveraged for rehabilitation? Who should have access to information about our brains? How should juries assess responsibility, given that most behaviors are driven by systems of the brain that we cannot control?
In conjunction with currently available literature on the topic, individual student projects will study and develop suggestions for new experiments and evidence-based policy. An example would be designing experiments that could identify neural signatures predictive of recidivism, and developing the policy structures in which these predictions should be used.