Behavioral & Neuroscience Law Committee (BNLC)

News and Research Blurb

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Sincerely,
Paul-Michael Lowey
Eric Y. Drogin, J.D., Ph.D., ABPP
BNLC Chair
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA
339.200.9131
eyd@drogin.net
edrogin@bidmc.harvard.edu

Kate Mayer Mangan, J.D.

BNLC Vice Chair
Donocle
San Diego, CA
kate@donocle.com

Jana Robinson, J.D., M.A.

BNLC Vice Chair
Family Division, NJ Superior Court
Trenton, NJ
janet.robinson@icloud.com

Carol Williams, LL.B.

BNLC Vice Chair
Aberystwyth University
Aberystwyth, Wales
cas55@aber.ac.uk

Paul-Michael R. Lowey
Editor, BNLC News and Research Blurb
William & Mary Law School, 2017
Williamsburg, VA
prlowey@email.wm.edu

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Decision-Making & Responsibility

How Much Is Too Much Marijuana To Drive? Lawmakers Wonder. NEW YORK TIMES. As states start to
legalize marijuana, lawmakers want to ensure that roads are not full of stoned drivers. While
drunkenness directly correlates with the amount of alcohol in a persons bloodstream, cannabis
impairment takes place only when THC makes its way into the fatty tissue of the brain. Regular
marijuana users can have THC metabolites in their system for hours, days, and even months after
being initially intoxicated. Current roadside tests do not accurately show whether a person is
impaired due to marijuana exposure. It would be equivalent to a test that shows that you had a
glass of wine three nights prior, said Jolene Forman, a staff lawyer for the Drug Policy Alliance, a
drug-reform advocacy group. (May 13, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/gpesy69
New Evidence for the Necessity of Loneliness. QUANTA MAGAZINE. According to John Cacioppo, the
director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago, the
reason humans developed such powerful social groups is because the pain of being alone motivates
individuals to seek companionship. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology think
they may have found the source of that motivation in a group of little-studied neurons in part of the
brain called the dorsal raphe nucleus, best known for its link to depression. To better understand the
role the dorsal raphe neurons play in loneliness, the researchers genetically engineered the dopamine
cells to respond to certain wavelengths of light, a technique known as optogenetics. They could then
artificially stimulate or silence the cells by exposing them to light. Stimulating the dopamine neurons
seemed to make the mice feel bad. Mice actively avoided stimulation if given the choice, just as they
might avoid physical pain. Moreover, the animals appeared to enter a state of loneliness they
acted like they had been alone, spending more time with other mice. (May 10, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/hpvrc8b
Neuroscientists Discovery Why Internet Pirates Dont Feel Guilty. TORRENT FREAK. Millions of people
across the world download and share movies, TV shows, music, software, and e-books without
obtaining permission from copyright holders. A new study may explain why downloaders feel no
guilt when they perform an act tantamount to stealing. In a three-part study published by Robert
Eres, a PhD student at the Social Neuroscience lab at the Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical
Neurosciences, researchers investigated what happens inside a persons brain when they pirate
intangible digital content compared to stealing a physical item. The researchers found that there was
a great deal of activation in the lateral orbital frontal cortexthe part of the brain associated with
feelings of moral sensitivitywhen participants imagined themselves stealing an item. Interestingly,
there was more activation in the lateral orbital frontal cortex when the participants were thinking
about stealing physical items compared to when they were thinking about stealing intangible items,
such as digital files. (May 9, 2016).
https://torrentfreak.com/scientists-discover-why-internet-pirates-dont-feel-guilty-160509/
Mental Illness & Treatment
Two Minutes Playing This Video Game Could Help Scientists Fight Alzheimers. WASHINGTON POST.
Michael Hornberger, a dementia researcher at the University of East Anglia in England, is the brain
behind an unlikely effort to turn a video game into a tool for research. His game, Sea Hero Quest,
is aimed at helping to spot early signs of dementia. The researchers collect data to help establish a
baseline understanding of how a healthy mind works or how it makes its way through the icy
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rivers and bustling oceans of Sea Hero Quest, at any rate. From there, they can conduct clinical
trials to see how the paths taken by patients with dementia differ. The game is broken into two
challenges. One challenge has players memorize maps then use them to make their way to
checkpoints. This tests memory and visual perception. The second asks players to sail to a spot and
then fire a flare back to their starting point. In the narrative of the game, this is to let their friends
on shore know where they are. But for the researchers behind the scenes, it tests players ability to
situate themselves in space. Both these skills rely on the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped structure
nestled in the middle of the brain. But the hippocampus is one of the first parts of the brain to
deteriorate in patients with Alzheimers. Thats why so many find themselves misplacing things, or
suddenly feeling disoriented in the middle of their own homes. (May 7, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/gstbmqv
Those With High Scores On A Psychopath Test Are Better At Creative Thinking, The Arts. MEDICAL DAILY.
A new study by researchers at De La Salle University in the Philippines suggests those with
psychopathic tendencies are often very creative, suggesting the ability to think boldly and ruthlessly
can help with the development of great ideas. In certain contexts, psychopathy can be a good thing.
Numerous studies have shown a lack of empathy can be advantageous in the business world.
Interestingly, the new study shows that uninhibited psychopathy can boost the creative spark,
something different from carefully applied Machiavellian plans. The team had 503 participants take a
survey to determine their dark triad score how narcissistic, psychopathic, and Machiavellian they
were. In the second part of the study, the scientists questioned participants about 10 different
creative areas, including visual arts, dancing, scientific discovery, and culinary arts. Besides listing
their activities, participants also ranked their level of achievement in the creative pursuit, ranging
from beginner, to taking lessons, to having their work appear in national publications. High
psychopathic scores correlated strongly with high creative achievement scores. Narcissism was
associated with high creative achievement scores as well, but the researchers noted that narcissistic
people would be likely to self-enhance, meaning they would lie about their achievements. (April 29,
2016).
http://www.medicaldaily.com/creative-thinking-psychopath-test-arts-384117
Gender, Sex, & Science
A New Study Reveals Our Deepest Sexual Insecurities. PSYCHOLOGY TODAY. Dr. Seth StephensDavidowitz uses Web searches to investigate Americas deepest anxieties. Recently, he analyzed one
month of Google sex searches and discovered that, for many Americans, the joy of getting it on
takes a back seat to all the anxieties the subject provokes. Men are unsurprisingly most anxious
about penis size. Among searches for penis, nine of the top 10 deal with sizewhy is it so small?
How can I make it longer? Thicker? Why are men so anxious about size? Men are convinced that
women place great value on a larger penis, but for every time a woman searches penis size, men
search it 170 times! Women, on the other hand, are just as insecure about their vaginas. StephensDavidowitz discovered that women search vagina almost as often as men search penis.
However, women are most concerned with odor. Women are also insecure about their breasts.
Every year Google tallies more than 7 million searches for breast implants. And finally, women
also feel insecure about their butts. During the Internets first decade, 1997-2007, most searches for
butt or buttocks focused on making it smaller. But starting in 2010, butt searches increasingly
dealt with enlargement, and by 2014, in every state, regardless of race, there were as many searches
for bigger butt as for smaller. (May 14, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/gv8w5x7
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Can Boys Beat Girls in Reading? WALL STREET JOURNAL. New research found that boys outscored girls
on reading tests when the children were told that the tests were a game. The study, published in the
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, looked at 80 children from four third-grade
classes at three French schools. The children were instructed to underline as many animal names as
possible in three minutes from a list of 486 words. Two classes were told it was an evaluation of
their reading abilities, and two were told it was a new animal fishing game designed for a fun
magazine. When the children were told it was a test, boys had an average of 33.3 correct answers
compared with 43.3 by the girls. In contrast, when the children were told it was a game, boys had an
average of 44.7 correct answers compared to 38.3 by the girls. (May 2, 2016).
http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-boys-beat-girls-in-reading-1462202491
Does Pregnancy Brain Exist? SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. Pregnancy brain refers to anecdotal lapses in
attention and memory experienced by expected mothers. About 80% of new mothers report
difficulties remembering things that once came naturally. Some studies have not found evidence for
this claim, while others suggest that new mothers exhibit a demonstrable decline in important
cognitive skills. On the flipside, the maternal brain also features important enhancements. Mother
rats score higher in tests of attention, foraging and planning than peers who have never given birth.
These gains most likely render them better able to defend and provide for their pups. A 2010 study
found that in the first few months after giving birth, human females show changes in several key
brain regions. Specifically, they often exhibit increased volume in the hypothalamus, striatum and
amygdalaareas essential for emotional regulation and parental motivationas well as in regions
governing decision-making and protective instincts. Many women exhibit blunted physiological and
psychological responses to stress, which may afford mother and fetus protection from the
potentially adverse effects of taxing situations. And in the postpartum period, the hormones that
sustain breast-feeding maintain these dampened stress responses. Pregnancy primes the brain for
dramatic neuroplasticity, which is further stimulated by delivery, lactation, and mother-child
interactions. (May 1, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/hovgnnt
Neuropolitics
What Kind Of Voter Is Most Susceptible When Pols Pile It High And Deep? SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.
Millions of voters this election cycle are shunning the establishment and the meaningless
platitudes that practiced politicians chew up and spit out like bubblegum. Scientists behind a recent
study have come up with a technical term for this political treacle: bullshit. Dr. Stefan
Pfattheicher, a psychologist at the University of Ulm, and Dr. Simon Schindler of the psychology
department at Kassel University, focused on pseudo-profound bullshit. The researchers asked 196
test participants to rank how profound they found a series of such empty axioms (e.g., Hidden
meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty.). Participants then ranked their own conservatism
or liberalism on a 1 to 7 scale of liberal to conservative. Finally, they ranked how favorably testtakers viewed the three highest-polling candidates in each top partyRepublicans Cruz, Marco
Rubio and Donald Trump; Democrats Martin OMalley, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. The
researchers found that conservatives, and Ted Cruz supporters in particular, to be most vulnerable
to bullshit. To test whether or not Republicans supporters were also more easily inspired by non-BS
than Democrats supporters, the scientists looked at the subjects reactions to true but mundane
statements. They found Clinton and OMalley supporters were most likely to find meaning in the
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mundane. In other words, conservatives were not more easily inspired than liberals by statements in
generaljust by what the researchers deemed pseudo-profound BS. (May 13, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/hba7axc
Donald Trump Feels Your Anger And Anxiety: How Neuroscience Helps Explain Trumps Triumphs. SALON.
Donald Trump has emerged as one of the most polarizing and seemingly unstoppable figures in
American politics. From his controversial proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States
to his Make America Great Again slogan, Trump takes advantage of how our brains are wired.
Cognitive science research shows that intentional thinking is only a small component of our mind,
with most of our mental processes dominated by emotions and intuitions. These emotions and
intuitions make snap decisions that usually feel true, and are correct much of the time. Yet they
sometimes steer us wrong in systematic and predictable ways. While we can use the rational part of
our mind to catch these predictable errors with sufficient training and time, many people currently
lack the skills to do so. Trump has excellent charisma and emotional intelligence. These qualities
make him capable of speaking effectively to the most powerful part of our brain, the emotional one.
His actions exploit intentionally or not the systematic errors in our thinking to get what he
wants. (April 23, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/jq9fapl
Who Deserves Healthcare and Unemployment Benefits? PSYCHOLOGY TODAY. In a newly published paper,
Drs. Carsten Jensen and Michael Bang Petersen of Aarhus University attempted to connect the
concept of sick with deserving of help. Humans are naturally social creatures and our ancestors
relied on the help of others to survive, especially when sick. However, we are likely to help only
those who have the ability to help us in the future. Evolutionarily speaking, helping others takes time
and energy, and it would only be adaptive for an organism to sacrifice resources to help another if
doing so was beneficial to the helper in the long term. Jensen and Petersen wanted to look at this in
the context of unemployment. They found that individuals are likely to support government
assistance program when the program is framed as helping the sick. In the back of our minds, we do
not believe people are culpable for being sick because infections strike indiscriminately, and being
sick is not indicative of whether that person might be able to help in the future. On the other hand,
support for government aid was lower when the program is framed as helping the lazy. The people
do not believe their tax dollars should subsidize unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as being obese or a
smoker. (May 16, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/zduehng
Scientists Now Know The Psychology Behind Your Worries About The Environment. WASHINGTON POST. Past
research has found that those who care about the environment score tend to be open to
experience and score high on measures of empathy. New research by Oberlin College psychologists
Paul Thibodeau and Stephen Lezak suggests that there is a more intellectual side to being green. In
particular, those who are likely to engage in systems thinking also tend to value the environment
more and be more concerned about climate change. When it comes to the role of systems thinking
in environmentalism, the idea is that its encouraging people to think about longer chains of
causality, nuanced aspects of a complex system, and how any behavior in that system can have both
intended and unintended consequences, and those can be hard to predict, said Thibodeau.
(April 27, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/zv6qwzq

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Neurophilosophy
Soon Well Use Science To Make People More Moral. WASHINGTON POST. Sometimes, people do terrible
things because they have a tragic misunderstanding of what it means to be good. Sometimes we do
regrettable things because we arent strong enough to be as good as we would like. Fortunately,
emerging neuroscience suggests that we will soon be able to both fix those with broken moral
compasses and tune up our own internal morality. Social neuroscience is revealing that much of our
capacity for virtue is set at birth. Qualities like self-control, empathy, deliberation and fairness are
substantially genetically and neurologically determined. For instance, substance abuse, sexual
promiscuity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the likelihood of ending up in the criminal
justice system have all been linked to the genes that regulate the neurochemical dopamine. Selfcontrol has been linked to having a larger, more active and better-connected prefrontal cortex,
which is able to control the more impulsive parts of the brain. Today, the medications used to treat
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder boost dopamine signaling and help give prefrontal executive
control the upper hand. Drugs, devices and gene therapies will soon allow us to safely suppress our
appetites with a level of control only seen in ascetics. Addictions will be treatable with implants,
vaccines and therapies that enable the brain to unlearn dependencies. To the extent that drugs,
devices or therapies do boost positive moral impulses, the skeptics are also right that they could be
too much of a good thing. Too much self-control can make Jack a dull boy, and too much empathy
can lead to unfairness. Yet it is likely that the front line of moral enhancement experimentation will
not be voluntary as we begin using these new therapies to treat psychopaths and criminals. Many
governments already offer testosterone suppression to sex offenders, substance abuse treatments to
the chemically dependent and psychiatric medications to mentally ill offenders. Eventually we will
also develop treatments for psychopathy and violent impulsiveness and fulfill the promise of actual
rehabilitation. At the same time, these tools will enable more effective forms of brainwashing and
enforced conformity. (May 19, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/zdl7pye
The Case Against Reality. ATLANTIC. We tend to assume that our perceptionssights, sounds,
textures, tastesare an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it
or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusionwe realize with a jolt that what we
perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brains best guess at what that world is like, a kind
of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a
reasonably decent one. Getting at questions about the nature of reality, and disentangling the
observer from the observed, is an endeavor that straddles the boundaries of neuroscience and
fundamental physics. On one side youll find researchers scratching their chins raw trying to
understand how a three-pound lump of gray matter obeying nothing more than the ordinary laws of
physics can give rise to first-person conscious experience. On the other side are quantum physicists,
marveling at the strange fact that quantum systems dont seem to be definite objects localized in
space until we come along to observe them. Experiment after experiment has shown that, if we
assume that the particles that make up ordinary objects have an objective, observer-independent
existence, we get the wrong answers. So while neuroscientists struggle to understand how there can
be such a thing as a first-person reality, quantum physicists have to grapple with the mystery of how
there can be anything but a first-person reality. (April 25, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/gppxg89

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Neuroscientific Research
Brain Prevents Anxiety by Suppressing Perception of Heartbeat. NEUROSCIENCE NEWS. Have you ever
wondered why you normally never feel your heartbeat? According to new research out of the Center
for Neuroprosthetics at EPFL, the brain is capable of filtering out the cardiac sensation so that it
does not interfere with the brains ability to perceive external sensations. They discovered that a
certain region in the brain determines where internal and external sensations interact. EPFLs
neuroscientists noted that the brain perceives visual stimuli less effectively if they occur in time with
the heartbeat. It seems as if the brain wants to avoid processing information that is synchronized
with the bodys heartbeat. In the first part of the study, volunteers were subjected to a visual
stimulus an octagonal shape flashing on a screen. When this geometric shape flashed in sync with
the subjects heartbeat, the subject had more difficulties perceiving it. But the researchers wanted to
find the neural mechanism for this phenomenon, so in the second part, they ran the experiment in
an MRI. When the visual stimuli were not in sync with the subjects heartbeat, the insular cortex
functioned normally and the subject perceived the flashing octagon easily. But when the stimuli
occurred in time with the heart rate, the level of activity in the insular cortex dropped noticeably: the
subject was less aware or totally unaware of the flashing shape being shown. (May 4, 2016).
http://neurosciencenews.com/anxiety-heart-rate-neuroscience-4165/
Our Brain Uses Statistics To Calculate Confidence, Make Decisions. MEDICAL XPRESS. According to a new
study published in NEURON, human brains are constantly processing data to make statistical
assessments that translate into the feeling we call confidence. The feeling ultimately relies on the
same statistical computations a computer would make, says Professor Adam Kepecs, a
neuroscientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and lead author of the new study. In
experiments with human subjects, Kepecs and colleagues tried to control for different factors that
can vary from person to person and establish what evidence contributed to each decision. To meet
this goal, Kepecs and graduate student Joshua Sanders created video games to compare human and
computer performance. They had human volunteers listen to streams of clicking sounds and
determine which clicks were faster. Participants rated confidence in each choice on a scale of one (a
random guess) to five (high confidence). Kepecs and his colleagues found that human responses
were similar to statistical calculations. The brain produces feelings of confidence that inform
decisions the same way statistics pulls patterns out of noisy data. At the same time, Kepecs says its
likely that the statistical computation his research reveals probably provides only an initial estimate
for human decision-makers. Human confidence reports are not equivalent to this computation, he
says. In the experiments we conducted, they mirror this computation, and we suspect that in more
complex situations they will be the point of departure for a confidence report. Kepecs plans to use
his model of confidence as a foothold for finding the seat of confidence in the brain and
understanding its neural circuitry. (May 4, 2016).
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-05-brain-statistics-confidence-decisions.html
Controlling Memories With Ultrasound. SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. Ultrasound, also called sonography, is
known for helping expecting parents predict the sex of their baby, but it is also useful in performing
surgery. It allows surgeons to remove cancerous cells without harming surrounding tissue. Similar
non-invasive procedures are the future of neuroscience and neurosurgery. As of very recently,
scientists have been able to use ultrasound to selectively and non-invasively control brain cells. In
other words, we can remote-control individual cells in the brain. We can send a pulse of sound into
a brain and change what that creature thinks and does. The underlying technology is called
sonogenetics, Most neurons do not automatically respond to ultrasound, so scientists had to first
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modify the cells they wanted to control using genetically altered particular parts of particular brain
cells. Once these cells were genetically altered, they responded to the ultrasound and could be
controlled by the researchers from outside the brain. But, before you sign up for ultrasound memory
therapy, I need to warn you that this technology is so new that it has only been tested in worms.
(May 2, 2016).
http://tinyurl.com/h5bshg5
Measurable Brain Changes Following Head Impacts From a Season of High School Football. NEUROSCIENCE
NEWS. A study by a team of researchers at UT Southwestern, Wake Forest University Medical
Center, and Childrens National Medical Center evaluated about two dozen players over the course
of a single football season. The researchers gathered data by players using special helmets that
recorded head impact during practice and games. Before and after the season, participants
underwent MRI scans and cognitive testing. The researchers used diffusional kurtosis imaging (DKI)
to identify any changes in neural tissue in the player-participants. At the conclusion of their study,
the researchers had in fact found measureable changes in their brains, even if the participant never
suffered a concussion. The researchers noted that the sample size of the players was not large
enough to draw any conclusions about the differences in impacts between positions and that more
research is necessary to better understand football and its impact on young mens brains.
(April 25, 2016).
http://neurosciencenews.com/brain-changes-football-neurology-4115/
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