Task 5 Flashcards
1) According to the literature, what influence do hormones and neurotransmitters have on personality and social behaviour?
- Disruptions in the HPA axis (body´s stress response system that regulates the release of the hormone cortisol) are frequently observed in antisocial people
- Low levels of cortisol (stress hormone) or serotonin in young age is predictive of later aggressive behavior
- Increased testosterone levels have been repeatedly associated with increased aggressive behavior in adults
- Low level of serotonin: Particular marker of people who show impulsive aggressive behavior
- Reduced level of monoamine oxidase A (MAOA): Enzyme that breaks down serotonin > Lower level > Higher serotonin level > Aggressive behavior
2) What are some neurobiological correlates of anti-social behaviour? And more specifically, what is the relationship between altered brain functioning and the propensity for violent behaviour?
- Genetics
- Prenatal and perinatal factors
- Psychophysiology (low heart rate)
- Reduced functioning in the frontal lobe
- DLPFC
- ACC
- OFC
- Amygdala
3) What do studies show us with regard to the potential for neuroimaging to provide incremental predictive power in predicting re-offending? What are the possibilities and what are some challenges?
Challenges
- methedological problems
- we can’t go straight from genes to behavior
- correlation does not imply causation
- no evidence for predictive validity
- ethical concerns on data gathering
- brains change over time
- external validity
- can’t be generalized
Possibilities:
Targeted investment of resources to underserved populations at risk of future violence has the potential to enhance neurocognitive functioning and prevent offending although these initial public health prevention programs require replication and extension; Mindfulness training, medication, biological interventions etc.
4) Eastman and Campbell claim that there can be a mismatch between questions that the courts and society wish answered and those that neuroscience is capable of answering.
a) What are the main reasons for the alleged mismatch?
Neuroscience may be able to describe abnormalities of mental functioning in their own terms but that is not to answer questions about legal responsibility. To attempt to go from ‘science about things in being’ to ‘law in the abstract’ which makes its own stab at answering what are ultimately profoundly difficult moral questions involves a journey of which there is no map and which may not even ‘exist’ as a journey.
Simple miscommunication commonly occurs when scientific answers are given to legal questions because of the inherent ‘mismatch’ between legal questions and scientific answers.
b) Does the mismatch pose a risk to the proper exercise of justice and to civil liberties?
Faced with a choice between biology-based evidence (that is more scientifically reliable but less informative about the individual) and psychology-based evidence (that is more informative but less scientifically reliable) a court is likely to choose the latter.
5) Which insights are offered by studies of behavioral, psychological, and neurobiological development of young adults?
Immaturity in the PFC is thought to make adolescents and young adults more susceptible to impetuous and shortsighted decision making and more vulnerable to the effects of emotional and social arousal on intellectual functioning
6) How is age and brain development related to risk-taking behaviour?
Young adults (18-21) + adolescents engage in risk-taking behavior at a higher rate than older adults. “Dual systems” models (reward-seeking + self-control): heightened risk-taking during adolescence is understood to be the result of a developmental asynchrony of high reward seeking and poor self-control
7) What is the specific contribution of neuroscience to discussions of adolescent blameworthiness/culpability? Does neuroscience add something new in comparison with what we already know from behavioural sciences?
Neuroscientific evidence bolsters the basic argument that adolescents are inherently less mature than adults. The neuroscientific evidence was probably persuasive to the court not because it revealed something new about the nature of adolescence but precisely because it aligned with common sense and behavioral science. In the end, the law is concerned with how we behavior and not with how our brains function. Neuroscience complements and corroborates the behavioral science but it does not make the behavioral findings more real.
8) What are the major US Supreme Court landmark decisions on the criminal liability of juveniles? What were the legal issues in these cases? In what way has the Court drawn in these cases on scientific studies of the adolescent brain?
The court´s decisions have been increasingly influenced by findings from studies of brain development to support the position that adolescents are less mature than adults in ways that mitigate their criminal culpability
Before Roper: Capital punishment is found unconstitutional for individuals under the age of 16 years.
Roper v. Simmons: Capital punishment is found unconstitutional for individuals under the age of 18 years.
Graham v. Florida: Life without parole is found unconstitutional for individuals under the age of 18 years convicted of crimes other than homicide.
Miller v. Alabama: States may not mandate life without parole for individuals under the age of 18 years, even in cases of homicide.
9) In what way have findings on brain development informed the current Dutch adolescent criminal law? Do you believe that this new legislation is justified by these findings?
-Netherlands recently raised age to 22 years for treating them as juvenile offenders. Besides the psychological faculties often mentioned (inhibition of impulses + emotion regulation) the justification also refers to an increased susceptibility to peer pressure and lack of autonomy.
But, the neuroscientific evidence quoted in favor of the new adolescent criminal law in NL does not support the new legal age thresholds.
