April 2011
61 posts
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How to add salt to a wound: Just ask NYC. City... →
So, after posting this, I wanted to make sure that the suit is still pending, and found not only is it pending but the City is adamant on “proceeding with a vigorous defense of the detectives and prosecutors, and the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that each of the five plaintiffs and their family members are seeking.”
Yes, defending the detectives that over zealously coerced...
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Why America Loves Serial Killers →
I think the “star status” in the culture can be traced back to Silence of the Lambs and the way it made a star out of Anthony Hopkins’ campy Hannibal Lecter by emphasizing his charming eccentricity rather than his cannibalism (or by making his cannibalism a charming eccentricity). Ever since then, serial-killer chic has achieved a stranglehold (so to speak) over American...
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"...life is like getting into a boat that’s just... →
In Tales From the New Asylum: Lose-Lose, Dr. Knoll tells a story of coming to terms with the meaning of providing adequate care to inmates and guiding them to recognize and learn the lesson that lies ahead.
It becomes hard to escape this lesson: We have to be taught how to accept reality. Some of us may need harder lessons, more homework, extra assignments. Trying to escape these lessons? This...
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Professor looks into use of ‘murder gene’ in... →
The discovery of “murder genes” embedded in genetics brings a new angle to the criminal justice system.
You may have heard of the MAO-A “warrior” gene, the murder gene is a variant of that, which Professor Gary Marchant says the presence of does not eliminate guilt but would play a part in sentencing of the offender. Still, even that is not a slam dunk to be dismissed as an excuse...
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Giving Prisoners Addictive Drugs: Sometimes a Good... →
Considering the high rates of opiate dependency among American prisoners (heroin and OxyContin), short-term jails seem like an ideal place for methadone programs. Several decades’ worth of evidence confirm that methadone treatment works.
(…) The best-known example of an in-prison methadone program is at New York City’s Rikers Island Correctional Facility. The facility’s...
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“Science does not trump the testimony of individuals.”
– A infuriating and ridiculous quote from Assistant Wayne County, Prosecutor Marilyn Eisenbraun, Michigan. via, from. Why does this make me crazy? Here’s just one example out of the over 30 years of research that discuss why eyewitness testimony is unreliable, not to mention the...
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Is Corporally Punishing Criminals Degrading? →
We routinely punish people in ways that cause them immense amounts of psychological suffering. Our current punishment of choice, imprisonment, causes this suffering by imposing drastic restrictions on liberty and disrupting the relationships, activities, and projects that bring happiness and meaning to people’s lives. We tend to find this regrettable, yet justifiable. However, if there is talk...
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Functioning synapse created using carbon... →
It’s like science articles are legally required to have a disclaimer, “Actual stuff mentioned in headline may not be possible for decades. Robots with people brains and flying cars are not here yet.”
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Lawyers for Juvenile Lifers Convicted of Murder... →
Lawyers for two prisoners sentenced to life in prison for murders committed when they were age 14 are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to accept their cases and strike down their sentences as unconstitutional.
The lawyers want the Supreme Court to extend its Graham v. Florida decision that held unconstitutional life sentences for juveniles who were convicted of crimes other than murder, the New...
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The Neuroscience of Breakups →
Scientists say the brain processes physical pain and the emotional pain of a breakup the same way.
Using fMRI scans, the researchers assessed which brain areas lit up when participants looked at pictures of their ex-partners and simultaneously thought about experiences they had shared together. They compared this to when participants looked at pictures of a friend and were exposed to pain via a...
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Watch
See why modern neuroscience claims that free will is an illusion
…and why psychology experiments suggest we may be better off believing the lie. via.
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Neuroscience in the Courtroom and Living the Lie: →
A 3 point break down from Michael S. Gazzaniga, Scientific American
Today courts rarely admit brain scans as evidence at trial for both legalistic and scientific reasons. As neuroscience matures, however, judges may increasingly see such scans as relevant to arguments about a defendant’s mental state or a witness’s credibility.
I haven’t seen anyone comment yet on using brain...
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A Brain on Chopin →
An animation showing changes in brain activity while study subjects listened to a performance of a Chopin etude in E major. H/T @jefftoney
Now think of all the activity going on and how the electrical storm in your brain looks in the regions of motor, emotion and Broca’s areas (which includes the mirror neuron system & speech) while listening to Chopin, reading this, in addition to...
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jtotheizzoe asked: Hope everything is ok! Did they hook you up to the one that goes "PING!"?? That's a very important one.
Damned grad school, I plan to kill it before it kills me, just didn't know it would be so literal.
Damned grad school, I plan to kill it before it kills me, just didn't know it would be so literal.
New study: gut bacteria has influence over the... →
This new study is the first to investigate the influence of gut bacteria on the biochemistry and development of the brain and may have influence on neurological and behavioral disorders. For example:
…bacteria may have an influence on the body’s use of vitamin B6, which in turn has profound effects on the health of nerve and muscle cells. They modulate immune tolerance and, because of...
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What 1 point means →
Tennessee Supreme Court Says Expert Testimony Needed When Determining IQ
Besides an IQ test score, testimony from mental health experts should be considered when determining if a prisoner is intellectually disabled, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled today.
The decision, according to the Memphis Daily News, deals with the appeal of Michael Angelo Coleman, who is on the state’s death row for...
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Things were just simpler in the Dark Ages: Two... →
“The first seeks to undermine retributivism because of the brain activity of subjects engaged in punishment decisions for retributive (as opposed to consequentialist) reasons. This challenge proceeds by linking retributivism with deontological moral theories and the brain activity correlated with deontological moral judgments.”
I’d say this speaks to how we as humans,...
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biomedengine asked: Thanks for the response it was very informative... You got me thinking about what the big question is in my mind. In many cases science seems to move from qualitative data to quantitative. In psychology there seems to be fewer quantitative methods to apply to a disease. Would a system that could measure brain activity, such as MRI, put some quantifiable results on the progress of a patient...
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Sentencing reform = money in the bank →
…but somehow I doubt a candidate’s platform will include sentencing reform when the password to office is healthcare/jobs.
“The Pew Center on the States, which has done a lot of groundbreaking research on criminal-justice policy, has a new report out showing that corrections represent the fastest-growing costs to state budgets second only to Medicaid.” (…) The...
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“Abandon legal disclaimers at the bottom of emails. This is so 1997 and by the...”
– Digital Tricks Every Lawyer Should Know - The American Bar Assoc. Journal
…fair enough. Now stop using the word “tricks”, ABA -and we’ll call it even.
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“In September Arizona shared several grams of sodium thiopental, a drug used in...”
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A shortage of drugs used in lethal injections has left American death chambers reliant on imports from Europe. Europeans are less than impressed. (via theeconomist)
“Particularly resourceful states have looked farther afield to find the drugs they need.”
Like using expired sodium...
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“In 16 percent of the first 250 DNA exonerations, or 40 of the 250 cases I...”
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Who confesses to a crime they didn’t commit: Frank Sterling and mistaken confessions. (2) - By Brandon L. Garrett - Slate Magazine (via jeffmiller)
Great article discussing the two most powerful and yet flawed pieces of evidence leading to wrongful convictions: eyewitness testimony and false...
biomedengine asked: It seems that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a lot like working-out. The more you do it, the better the results are. Your recent post on MRI images showing patients what their brain activity looks like during introspective thoughts is a way of monitoring the progress of the "CBT workout". What are typical methods to monitor progress in CBT (e.g. depression index??), and how does...
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I typed this with my fingers. So outdated. →
Lot’s going on in terms of brain scan porn lately, and I’ve really tried to keep it neutral, but it gets pretty racy thinking about the possibilities. It’s no secret I’m interested in eventually wiggling my way into a lab related to my interests (far & few between as they are)…and it sounds even more enticing, since it is increasingly supported by emerging work...
oneofthosedeafmutes asked: Can you talk a bit about what majoring in forensic psychology was like? And what you want to be/are doing with it? I'm thinking about majoring in psychology and i'm just evaluating all my options.
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Brain Scans as Evidence: Truths, Proofs, Lies, and... →
This contribution to the Brain Sciences in the Courtroom Symposium identifies and discusses issues important to admissibility determinations when courts confront brain-scan evidence. Through the vehicle of the landmark 2010 federal criminal trial U.S. v. Semrau (which considered, for the first time, the admissibility of brain scans for lie detection purposes) this article highlights critical...
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Better Worlds: ANNOUNCING Immodest Proposals IX:... →
As noted on the tumblr meetup directory:
betterworlds:
The Immodest Proposals discussion series continues! This time, with a topic inspired by a tumblr personality, psydoctor8.
The details are quoted from the discussion’s RSVP page over on meetup.com:
THE TOPIC:
This Guardian article suggests that the technology to eliminate criminal…
Oh hey guys. Look what I’m up...
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"The tipping point for major change is often... →
More than 80 percent of the patients arrive [at California at the state psychiatric hospital in Napa] by way of the criminal justice system, considered incompetent to stand trial, not guilty by reason of insanity, or just too dangerous and mentally ill to be paroled to the community. Via NPR
I’m still approved to begin an externship to gain clinical hours at one of the NY state...
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“There is much good work for philosophers to do in cognitive science if they...”
– The Part of Cognitive Science That Is Philosophy. By my current read, Daniel C. Dennett. VIA He pulls a lot from Libet, and it’s all working for me. Can I pay someone to follow me around and read to me? Is that a thing? Like tiny Russian giraffes?
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The cost of bringing 1 neuroscience-specific drug... →
NIMH Shifts Focus to Molecular Origins of Mental Illness
“To accelerate the development of personalized and preemptive treatments for those living with mental illness, the NIMH is shifting away from current-generation treatments and toward preclinical drug development and early-phase clinical pharmacology.
(…) In the new report, the workgroup makes several observations—that mental...
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Brain scans suggest (gasp) psychopaths could be... →
Psychopaths are typically considered untreatable, but brain scans could change that
The two studies provide the best evidence yet that there are structural abnormalities in the brains of children with callous unemotional traits, says Koenigs. They also offer researchers new targets for attempts to reverse the condition - and perhaps also for reversing the symptoms of psychopathy. For instance,...
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Please resist the need to resist: Reforming... →
Everyone suffers when a witness misidentifies an innocent person as the perpetrator of a crime. The innocent person is punished for a crime he or she didn’t commit, and the real perpetrator goes free, putting us all at risk and giving the victim a false sense of security. Even if the police are ultimately able to catch the real perpetrator, the odds of getting a conviction are significantly...
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