News and Commentary Archive

Explore recent scientific discoveries and news as well as CLBB events, commentary, and press.

Mission

The Center for Law, Brain & Behavior puts the most accurate and actionable neuroscience in the hands of judges, lawyers, policymakers and journalists—people who shape the standards and practices of our legal system and affect its impact on people’s lives. We work to make the legal system more effective and more just for all those affected by the law.

The MacArthur Research Foundation Network on Law and Neuroscience: YouTube Channel

Launched in summer 2014, the lawneuro.org YouTube channel features extensive footage of talks by preeminent law and neuroscience scholars at three recent events: the 2013 Colloquium on Law, Neuroscience, and Criminal JusticeThe Future of Law & Neuroscience, 2013 (featuring CLBB co-director Judith Edersheim; and the 2014 Colloquium on Law, Neuroscience, and Criminal Justice.

Visit the YouTube channel here.

 

Doctors Call: End Warning on Antidepressants or Risk Suicides

ABC News | July 9, 2014 | Susan Donaldson James

Mental health experts are calling on the Food and Drug Administration to remove its most severe label – the so-called “black box warning” — on all categories of antidepressants because it has been “highly correlated” with a more than 33 percent jump in suicide attempts over the last decade as doctors and patients who could benefit from the drugs have shied away from using them.

June study published in the BMJ backs up previous research that shows a link between fears about the use of antidepressants and young people taking their lives.

The data is “startling,” said Dr. Gene Beresin, executive director of The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds, which is affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital.

“A black box warning means parents and doctors must be aware and monitor,” he told ABC News. “But that’s the next closest thing to prohibition.”

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