A Conversation with Dr. Judy Edersheim and Dr. Bruce Price, Co-Founders and Co-Directors of the MGH Center for Law, Brain and Behavior

February 11th @ 10:00AM EST

MGH FTD Unit Community Forum Friday Webinar Series
Link to Livestream

Do you have questions about legal and financial considerations after a diagnosis of dementia? Have you thought about the role that an attorney can have as a member of your care team? Do you know the steps you can take to protect yourself and your vulnerable loved one in the face of financial scams?

Join Katie Brandt for a conversation with Dr. Judy Edersheim and Dr. Bruce Price, Co-Founders and Co-Directors of the MGH Center for Law, Brain and Behavior to discuss how families can recognize legal and financial threats and take action to protect their loved ones living with a diagnosis of dementia.

We hope that you will join us for this informative and engaging session!

Judith G. Edersheim, JD, MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry,
Harvard Medical School
Psychiatrist, Mass General Hospital
Co-Founder and Co-Director, The MGH Center for Law, Brain and Behavior

Bruce Price, MD
Senior Clinical Associate,
Department of Neurology,
Mass General Hospital
Associate Professor of Neurology,
Harvard Medical School
Co-Founder and Co-Director, The MGH Center for Law, Brain and Behavior

MGH FTD Unit Online Community Supports

We are partnering with community experts to bring you relevant information to navigate life with a diagnosis, caregiving and staying connected with our MGH FTD Unit community.

All Community Forum Fridays are Recorded and Posted to:
MGH FTD Unit YouTube Channel

Learn more about the MGH Frontotemporal Disorders Unit:

February 22, 2022, 12:00 PM
Online

See event recording here!

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, this panel discussion will be held virtually, as an online webinar. To ensure that you will receive access to the livestream and be kept up to date on any changes to the event, register now. We will send out a link to the livestream of the event to all registrants the day before and day of the event. Last registration is 11:30am on the day of the event.

Event Description

How can family law support parents and their children when a parent has a substance use disorder?

One in eight children live in a home with a parent with a substance use disorder. Most of these children are under the age of five.

This discussion will examine innovations in family law contexts, such as divorce, child custody, and care and dependency cases, that promote safety and recovery while emphasizing compassion and support for parents. Topics of discussion will include family drug court interventions, interventions for mothers with opioid use ​disorder, integrated family medical and behavioral care, and implications for policy.

Panelists

Introduction: Carmel Shachar, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center

Hon. Beth A. Crawford (Ret.), First Justice, Franklin County Probate and Family Court, Massachusetts (Former)

Davida Schiff, MD, Director, Perinatal and Family-based SUDs Care at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

Stephanie Tabashneck, PsyD, JD, Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, CLBB and the Petrie-Flom Center

This event is part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

 February 09, 2022, 12:30 PM
 Online

Watch the recording here!

Event Description

The U.S. Supreme Court landmark case of Roper v. Simmons (2005) barring execution for crimes committed prior to age 18 launched a line of cases extending Eighth Amendment protections for juveniles. These cases clearly established that children are not little adults. The April 2021 SCOTUS decision in Jones v. Mississippi appears to signal a shift from federal constitutional cases to litigation and legislation among the states. This has prompted vigorous debate about how science should inform criminal law and policy regarding late teens and emerging adults and sharpens ongoing controversy about how developmental science is or should be applied to those under 18. This panel surveys the current landscape of cases and legislation focused on crafting developmentally aligned frameworks for responding to misconduct by younger adolescents, late adolescents (ages 18 – 20) and emerging adults (21 – 25), including “raising the age” of full criminal culpability past age 18. The contributions of neuroscience to informing a developmentally aligned jurisprudence for late adolescents and emerging adults will be reviewed.

Panelists

• Introduction: Carmel Shachar, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center
• Honorable Jay Blitzman (ret.), CLBB Affiliated Faculty and Lecturer, Harvard Law School, Northeastern Law School, and Boston College Law School
• Lael Chester, JD, Director of the Emerging Adult Justice Project at Columbia University’s Justice Lab
• Stephanie Tabashneck, PsyD, JD, Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, CLBB and the Petrie-Flom Center

This event is part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. 

 October 13, 2021, 12:30 PM, Online Event

View now!

Online Viewing

Event Description

Watching this recording of our discussion on October 13^th of the updated edition of The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers with author and William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology, Daniel Schacter.

This updated edition revisits Professor Schacter’s groundbreaking research with the twenty-first century’s cultural trends and scientific discoveries. This event featured a book talk and a moderated Q&A.

Panelists

• Introduction and Moderator: Elyssa Spitzer, Policy Analyst, Women’s Initiative, American Progress and Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, CLBB and the Petrie-Flom Center 
• Daniel L. Schacter, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard University

This event is part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. 

Mental Health Moonshot: Unlocking Federal Funds for Psychedelics Research

 April 12, 2021, 12:00 PM

The U.S. needs a mental health moonshot.  

Inspired by the Apollo moon landing, moonshots are ambitious projects with monumental goals. The U.S. has a history of funding moonshots with federal tax dollars, and the Human Genome Project is one recent example. More recently, in 2016, President Obama and Vice President Biden announced the national Cancer Moonshot to dramatically improve the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. That year, Congress allocated $1.8 billion to fund the project.   

The U.S. needs an equally ambitious moonshot to address worsening mental health and substance use crises, leading causes of death exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there are significant barriers to researching a promising new class of drugs for treating mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders: psychedelic compounds, such as psilocybin and MDMA, which are tightly controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration. In 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez introduced a bipartisan bill to ease restrictions, which was rejected by the House of Representatives.

This panel discussed the need for an ambitious federally-funded mental health moonshot built around psychedelics and analyzed the obstacles to achieving it.   

Panelists

• Introduction: Carmel Shachar, Executive Director, The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School
• Mason Marks, Assistant Professor of Law, Gonzaga University; Fellow in Ethics of Technological and Biomedical Innovation, Edmond J. Safra and Petrie-Flom Centers, Harvard University
• Dr. Jerrold F. Rosenbaum, Advisory Board Member, Center for Law, Brain & Behavior (CLBB); Psychiatrist-in-Chief Emeritus and Director, Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders; and Director, Center for Neuroscience of Psychedelics, Massachusetts General Hospital 
• Melissa Lavasani, Founder and Executive Director, Plant Medicine Coalition
• Franklin King IV, MD, Psychiatrist, Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders; and Director, Training and Education, Center for Neuroscience of Psychedelics, Massachusetts General Hospital
• Moderator: Elyssa Spitzer, JD, Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, CLBB and the Petrie-Flom Center 

View the fully captioned event video. 

This event is part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.