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.

Harvard Catalyst announces pilot funding for adolescent mental health

The Harvard Catalyst Child Health Committee fosters collaboration across Harvard and its affiliated institutions, and supports innovative and collaborative child health-related clinical and translational research. Now, the Harvard Catalyst is inviting applications for pilot grants to foster and enable collaborative research on mental health and the developing brain in the second decade of life across the T1-T4 translational spectrum. Read the RFA announcement here. Continue reading »

Elder Justice Initiative

The Elder Justice Initiative website, launched alongside the US Department of Justice Elder Justice initiative this month, intends to be a resource for victims of elder abuse and financial exploitation and their families, practitioners who serve them, law enforcement agencies and prosecutors, and researchers seeking to understand and address the silent epidemic plaguing our nation’s elders.

View resources, help for reporting elder abuse, FAQs, common scenarios and more about Victim and Family Support.

Find sample databases, statutes, and training resources for Prosecutors.

Explore maps, statistics, and extensive databases for Researchers.

Read reports for attorneys, clinicians, judges, medical examiners and other Practitioners.

Additionally, learn about elder Financial Abuse.

Explore the Elder Justice Initiative website here.

Pain Research Forum

The Pain Research Forum was launched in June 2011 to provide a place for members of the international pain research community to engage in an open exchange of information and ideas. The ultimate goal of the Pain Research Forum is to foster discussion and collaboration that will speed the acquisition of new knowledge and its translation into novel treatments for chronic and neuropathic pain.

All news and discussion content, research resources and member services are provided free to researchers, clinicians and others interested in the problem of chronic pain. Visit Classic Papers, Pain 101, Forums, and Webinars to learn more about pain.

Explore the Pain Research Forum website here.

Stopping the Financial Abuse of Seniors

According to the AARP, about 60 percent of adult protective services (APS) cases of financial abuse nationwide involved an adult child of the elderly person.

This longform resource, created in 2011 by the American Bank Association’s Bank Compliance magazine, addresses the vital role banks play in the regulation of elder abuse, and how the law bears on bank–elder interactions.

Read “Stopping the Financial Abuse of Seniors” here.

Free Will: Is Your Brain the Boss of You?

Scientific American Blogs | June 30, 2014 | Mark Fischetti

Philosophers have debated for years whether we deliberately make each of the many decisions we make every day, or if our brain does it for us, on autopilot. Neuroscientists have shown, for example, that neurons in the brain initiate our response to various stimuli milliseconds before we’re even aware that we’re taking such an action.

This heady debate has hit a very practical road in the past decade: whether individuals who commit crimes are actually responsible for them. Lawyers have argued in court that if the brain determines the mind, then defendants may not be responsible for their transgressions.

Michael Gazzaniga, director of the SAGE Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is at the forefront of the research into free will, and its implications in courtroom trials and in the expectations of different societies. His thoughts and proclamations are captured in an engaging video called Free Will, created by Joseph LeDoux, a well-known expert on the emotional brain at New York University. The video is the second in a series he is putting together with director Alexis Gambis called My Mind’s Eye. (The first episode featured Ned Block on the mind-body problem.)

Read the rest of the article and view the video on Scientific American Blogs, or read more about Michael Gazzaniga here.