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Behavioral & Neuroscience Law Committee (BNLC)

News and Research Blurb


Dear Readers,
Please enjoy Marchs edition of the BNLC blurb! Feel free to email me with your suggestions for the
newsletter and requests for particular topics.
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Sincerely,
James Andris
Eric Y. Drogin
BNLC Chair, Section of Science & Technology Law
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA
877.877.6692
eyd@drogin.net
edrogin@bidmc.harvard.edu

Linda Berberoglu
BNLC Vice Chair, Section of Science & Technology Law
Fourth Judicial District Court,
Psychological Services Division
Minneapolis, MN
612.348.7182
linda.berberoglu@courts.state.mn.us
linda.berberoglu@wmitchell.edu

James M. Andris, Jr.


Editor, BNLC News and Research Blurb
William & Mary Law School, 2015
Williamsburg, VA
267.615.1399
jmandris@email.wm.edu

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SUBSTANCE ABUSE & ADDICTION


Raise Minimum Age to Buy Cigarettes to Decrease Use: U.S. Study. REUTERS. A recent study found that
raising the minimum age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21 or 25 years old would
significantly reduce tobacco use and related illnesses in the United States. The researchers explained
that many parts of the brain do not fully develop until age 25, including the parts responsible for
impulse control, decision-making, peer susceptibility, and conformity. This makes adolescents highly
vulnerable to nicotine use and addiction. The study found that 90 percent of daily smokers had tried
their first cigarette before the age of 19 and that the remaining 10 percent had tried tobacco
products by 26. This data suggests that if someone has not smoked a cigarette by the time he or she
turns 25, then he or she is unlikely ever to do so. (March 12, 2015)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/12/usa-health-cigarettes-idUSL1N0WD2D020150312
How to Make Cocaine Less Addictive. TIME. In a new study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience,
researchers experimented with rats and showed that it is possible to interfere with the brains
memory creation process, which is involved in cocaine addiction. The researchers gave a group of
rats cocaine while they were in a specific cage, conditioning the rats to associate the cage with
cocaine consumption. Researchers then removed the perineuronal nets, a part of the brain
associated with attention, learning, and memory, from some of the rats. Researchers found that the
rats without their perineuronal nets found the drug cages less desirable, suggesting that the bruain
structure is involved with drug-related memories and that removing them can blunt those memories.
These findings could help people trying to recover from addiction. (March 11, 2015)
http://time.com/3739789/cocaine-addictive/
NIH-Funded Scientists Identify Brain Site for Stress Role in Binge Alcohol Drinking. NIH. New research
supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) shows that elements of the brains stress and
reward pathways can interact to suppress binge drinking. Previous studies demonstrated that a
protein known as the corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) increases anxiety and that CRF activity
increases during binge drinking. In contrast, a protein called neuropeptide Y (NPY) reduces binge
drinking and anxiety. However, how and where these two systems interact in the brain is unknown.
The NIH study reports that the anti-drinking effect of NPY is produced by enhancing the inhibition
of CRF neurons in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), a brain region involved in
reward and anxiety behaviors. These findings suggest that enhancing NPY function or inhibiting
CRF function could help prevent and treat alcohol abuse. (March 10, 2015)
http://www.nih.gov/news/health/mar2015/niaaa-10.htm
Rising Price of Heroin-Overdose Antidote Worries Advocates. WASH. POST. Price hikes are curtailing access
to naloxone, a popular form of an antidote to heroin overdoses. Now, instead of buying 400
naloxone kits for a little under $21,000, hospitals, clinics, and police departments pay just as much
for only 200 naloxone kits. In some countries, the drug costs less than $1 per dose. Advocates in the
U.S. fear the higher cost of naloxone, often sold in the U.S. as Narcan, will lead to the deaths of
addicts who could have been saved if they had had access to the drug. (March 9, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/q5ch8b7
Psychiatric Drug Overuse Is Cited by Federal Study. N.Y. TIMES. Federal investigators say they have found
evidence of widespread overuse of psychiatric drugs by older Americans with Alzheimers disease,
and are recommending that Medicare officials take immediate action to reduce unnecessary
prescriptions. These findings, released by the Government of Accountability Office, state that
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Doctors sometimes prescribe antipsychotic drugs to calm patients with dementia who display
disruptive behavior like hitting, yelling or screaming. The findings continue to explain that this is
often the case in nursing homes that have inadequate numbers of employees. (March 1, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/nzolqqc
New Rules on Narcotic Painkillers Cause Grief for Veterans and VA. WASH. POST. New federal rules that
make it harder to get narcotic painkillers are taking an unexpected toll on veterans who depend on
prescription drugs to treat ailments ranging from missing limbs to post-traumatic stress. The
restrictions, adopted last summer by the Drug Enforcement Administration to curb a national
epidemic of opioid abuse, force veterans to return to their doctor every month to renew their
medication. Many veterans are already struggling to get appointments at overburdened VA health
facilities, these new federal rules compound this problem. Although the regulation applies to
everyone on opioid painkillers, it is hitting veterans especially hard because so many are being
treated for injuries sustained in war zones and now dependent on the Department of Veterans
Affairs health-care system. (February 18, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/pvxr7uu
MENTAL ILLNESS
Clinically Depressed Three Times More Likely to Commit Violent Crime. REUTERS. A study published in
Lancet Psychiatry found that people diagnosed with major depressive disorder are roughly three times
more likely to commit violent crimes, such as robbery, sexual offences and assault, than the general
population. In the study, Oxford University researchers tracked the medical and crime records of
47,158 people diagnosed with depression for three years and compared them with 898,454 nondepressed people. Researchers found that the depressed patients had a higher risk of harming others
and harming themselves. When researchers adjusted for other factors that increase the risk of
violence, including a history of violence, self-harm, psychosis, and substance abuse, they found a
smaller but still increased risk of violent crime among the depressed sample. The researchers
emphasized that the overwhelming majority of depressed people are neither violent nor criminal and
should not be stigmatized. Instead, they hope to advance their research and apply it to developing
effective anti-depression treatments. (February 24, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/povhwky
Should Mentally Ill People Be Forced into Treatment?. TIME. A new study released by a consulting firm
found that states and counties that have passed laws that grant local judges the power to order
people into short-term psychiatric treatment programs spend substantially less money on treating
mental illness than regions that do not have the same option. These programs, known as Assisted
Outpatient Treatment (AOT) programs, are narrowly tailored safety nets designed to stabilize
people with serious mental illnesses. In the short-term, AOT programs require states and counties to
pay a significant amount to maintain the necessary inpatient and outpatient facilities, but the return
appears to justify the initial expense. For example, New York Citys AOT program produced net
cost savings of 47%. In the five counties surrounding New York, it saved 58%. In Summit County,
Ohio, it saved 50%. (February 20, 2015)
http://time.com/3716426/mental-illness-treatment-cost/

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MEMORY
Scientists May Be Able to Turn Your Bad Memories into Good Ones. TIME. Neuroscientists from the French
National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and ESPCI ParisTech recently conducted an
experiment where they placed electrodes in the brains of sleeping mice that had navigated a maze
earlier in the day. As the mice consolidated the maze information into memory, the scientists
activated the reward center of their brains to create a positive association with certain areas on the
map. The next morning, the mice ran straight for those places. This breakthrough could potentially
help doctors treat people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, allowing them to create new
emotional associations with old memories. (March 12, 2015)
http://time.com/3742234/memory-ptsd-mice/
TRIAL-RELATED ISSUES
Police Agencies Line up to Learn about Unconscious Bias. WASH. POST. Law enforcement officers travel to
the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles to understand how their unconscious biases can impact
the way they do their jobs. This training type is gaining traction among police departments in dozens
of cities, including Philadelphia and Dallas, especially after recent protests over the killings of black
men by white officers and the renewed debate about the role race plays in policing. Experts say the
focus on implicit bias is the next frontier of police training as important a subject as the proper
use of force. Yet, some researchers caution that theres not enough evidence to show that implicit
bias training is effective. They say it could potentially endanger officers or the public by making
officers slower to recognize threats for fear of being called biased, and that the trainings benefits
could quickly disappear when an officer re-enters the real world. (March 9, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/ks5r5v2
Lawyers Seek Reprieve for Killer Who Lost Part of His Brain Decades Earlier. N.Y. TIMES. In 1972, Cecil
Clayton was cutting wood when a piece of lumber flew off his saw blade and struck him in the
forehead, caving in part of his skull and driving bone fragments into his brain. Doctors saved his
life, but removed 20 percent of his frontal lobe. Psychiatrists believe this surgery induced Claytons
history of violent impulses, schizophrenia, and extreme paranoia. According to Claytons lawyers,
these impulses explain why Clayton killed a law enforcement officer in 1996. Today, Clayton is 74,
has an I.Q. of 71, and is on death row. Claytons lawyers say that six psychiatric evaluations have
determined that he is ineligible for execution under Missouri and federal law, which require that the
condemned know that they are to be executed and understand the reasons for it. (March 7, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/pwv7zfm
JUVENILE CRIME
Upping Juvenile Criminal Age to 18 May Be Texas Non-Starter. N.Y. TIMES. Since 1918, Texas has
charged 17-year-olds as adults. Due to the 2003 Prison Elimination Act, which requires prisons to
separate youths from the sight and sound of inmates 18 and older, some Texas legislators are
pushing to raise the adult-classification age to 18. County facilities that do not comply with the act
are prohibited from entering into state or federal contracts. Many states adopted more aggressive
laws regarding juvenile offenders amid a jump of youth-related crime in the 1980s. A subsequent
drop in such crime, research into brain development, and a series of Supreme Court rulings led
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many states to have a change of heart. Today, forty-one states treat criminal defendants younger
than 18 as juveniles, though judges can decide in certain cases that they should be charged as adults.
Seven states, including Texas, charge 17-year-olds as adults. And two states New York and North
Carolina treat those 16 and older as adults under certain circumstances. (March 1, 2015)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/01/us/ap-us-xgr-17-year-old-adults.html&_r=0
NEUROSCIENCE AND THE LAW
Use of Neuroscience in Law May Face Political Resistance. SCIENCEDAILY. A study conducted by
University of Minnesota and University of Pennsylvania researchers found that Republicans and
Independents are more likely to disapprove of neuroscience-based legal reforms if the reforms are
perceived as being too lenient on criminal defendants. The researchers used a telephone sample of
1,000 Americans and asked each participant if he or she generally approved of integrating
neuroscience and the law. They found that 9% of the sample strongly disapproved, 9% strongly
approved, 40% were undecided, 42% were split between disapproval and approval, and that there
was no significant difference between Republican and Democrat opinion. The researchers also asked
if each recipient would approve of the integration if the resulting reform would help prosecutors
obtain harsher sentences, versus helping criminal defendants obtain lighter sentences. Both
Republicans and Independents reported significantly greater disapproval of using neuroscience when
researchers framed the reform as helpful to criminal defendants. Democrats, however, supported
the integration equally across the prosecution and defense conditions. (February 24, 2015)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150224143114.htm
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