Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience Research

The Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, now in its fourth year, is a collaboration between the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain and Behavior (CLBB) and the Petrie-Flom Center. The collaboration includes a Senior Fellow in residence, public symposia, and a Law and Neuroscience Seminar at Harvard Law School taught by the Hon. Nancy Gertner. For more information, see the full press release on the launch of the program.

2017–2019 Senior Fellow

Francis X. Shen, PhD, JD is the third Senior Fellow in Law and Neuroscience. Shen is currently an Associate Professor of Law and McKnight Presidential Fellow at the University of Minnesota; affiliated faculty at the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital; and Executive Director of Education and Outreach for the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience. He will pursue original research, mentoring, and public engagement on legal issues related to the aging brain, dementia, traumatic brain injury, and the law. Activities will include expert symposia and public events to promote focused discussion on how the law can more effectively respond to aging brain issues including dementia and traumatic brain injury.

2017–2019 Area of Inquiry: Dementia and the Law

Medical advances and demographic trends in the United States are producing previously unseen numbers of elderly citizens. Understanding the neurobiology of dementia has become increasingly policy relevant, as this aging generation faces a variety of legal challenges. For instance, anticipating over 70 million Baby Boomers retiring, elder financial exploitation has been labeled the “Crime of the 21st Century.”

At present, the legal system relies upon an array of concepts—such as competency, testamentary capacity, and undue influence—that are difficult to define and understand. Applying these legal definitions (which often date back to the 19th century) is fraught with difficulty in large part because the descriptive standards are not well aligned with the behavioral and neurological measures that have been developed over the past decade. Interdisciplinary dialogue between law, neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, neurology, neuropsychology, and related disciplines is needed to assess how these legal frameworks can be better informed by medical and neuroscience frameworks.

Shen’s goal during his fellowship year will be to foster this interdisciplinary dialogue on dementia and the law. The Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience will assess the utility of law’s traditional approaches to competency, capacity, and undue influence in light of emerging science on the neurobiology of dementia; consider the future legal utility and ethics of new biomarkers for dementia; and begin developing new theoretical and practical frameworks for more fairly and effectively adjudicating cases in which dementia plays a role.

Shen will be joined in this work by eminent CLBB faculty, including Judge Nancy Gertner, Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett, Dr. Judith Edersheim, Dr. Bruce H. Price, Dr. Brad Dickerson, and Dr. Jennifer Moye.

2015–2017 Area of Inquiry: Adolescence, Juvenile Justice, and the Law

Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD was the second Senior Fellow in Law and Neuroscience. Kinscherff is a senior administrator and doctoral clinical psychology faculty member at William James College, faculty at the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Senior Associate at the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice. He pursued original research, mentoring, and public engagement related to issues of neurodevelopment and juvenile justice, which included expert symposia and public events to promote focused discussion on questions at the intersection of adolescent neurodevelopment, juvenile justice, and the law.

Learn more about Professor Kinscherff's work at the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience by watching the events he organized around the subjects of adolescence, juvenile justice, and the law!

Film screening and panel discussion: Healing in the Wake of Community Violence: Lessons from Newtown and Beyond, April 18, 2017
Panel discussion: Opiate Regulation Policies: Balancing Pain and Addiction, April 3, 2017
Panel discussion: Half A Life: Legal and Policy Implications of Releasing Youth Incarcerated for Murder, November 15, 2016
Conference: Federal Judicial Center Workshop on Pretrial Justice: What Works and Why, September 26-28, 2016
Panel discussion: Battling Blood in the Streets: How Can Neuroscience Promote Public Health and Support Public Policy to Prevent Community Violence?, September 7, 2016
Panel discussion: Boys to Men to Boys, April 13, 2016
Panel discussion: Fetal Pain: An Update on the Science and Legal Implications, February 10, 2016
Lecture: Should the Science of Adolescent Brain Development Inform Legal Policy?: A lecture by Laurence Steinberg, PhD, November 13, 2015
Panel discussion: From Troubled Teens to Tsarnaev: Promises and Perils of Adolescent Neuroscience and Law, September 28, 2015

2014–2015 Area of Inquiry: Pain and the Law

In fall 2014, Amanda C. Pustilnik was the inaugural Senior Fellow for Law and Applied Neuroscience. Professor Pustilnik, who is currently Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, addressed the practical and theoretical applications that the new science of brain imaging technologies can and should have for law, particularly when those technologies are applied to issues of pain. Questions addressed in her work and the events she organized included: How should pain neuroimaging be handled as a matter of expert evidence in state, federal, and administrative proceedings? What doctrinal changes, if any, should occur in disability law to account for the ways in which chronic pain can become a central nervous system disorder? Tort law currently compensates physical and psychiatric or emotional injuries differently; if chronic pain is a subjective experience rooted in brain dysfunction, is the ongoing pain of an injury meaningfully different from a psychiatric harm?

Learn more about Professor Pustilnik’s work at the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience by watching the events she organized around the subjects of pain, brain imaging, and the law!