Brain Science for Lawyers, Judges, and Policymakers

Owen D. Jones holds the Weaver Chair in Law, Brain, and Behavior at Vanderbilt University, where he is both Professor of Law and Professor of Biological Sciences. Professor Jones previously served as Co-Director and then Director of the MacArthur Foundation Law and Neuroscience Project. He currently directs the Weaver Family Program in Law, Brain Sciences, and Behavior. He is also an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Center for BioethicsJeffrey D. Schall obtained a Ph.D. at the University of Utah and postdoctoral training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the faculty at Vanderbilt University in 1989 and moving to York University in 2021. Professor Schall is a fellow of the Association of Psychological Science and of AAAS; he participated in the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project and contributed to the first coursebook in Law & Neuroscience.Francis X. Shen, JD, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical and the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Hospital, and a Harvard University Affiliated Professor at Harvard Law School. Dr. Shen has co-authored 3 books, is a Principal Investigator on multiple NIH BRAIN Initiative grants, and leads the Dana Foundation Career Network in Neuroscience and Society.Morris B. Hoffman was a district judge in the Second Judicial District, State of Colorado, from 1991 to 2021. He was chair of the Colorado Supreme Court's Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, and a member of the Colorado Supreme Court's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure. Morris B. Hoffman is a member of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, and a research fellow at the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research.Anthony D. Wagner is a Lucie Stern Professor in the Department of Psychology and a deputy director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University. Professor Wagner is a Reviewing Editor at Cerebral Cortex and Cerebral Cortex Communications, and an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Association for Psychological Science, and Society of Experimental Psychologists.

• ForewordChapter 1: Where We Are NowChapter 2: Overview of the BrainChapter 3: The Cerebral CortexChapter 4: The Interior of the BrainChapter 5: How Neurons WorkChapter 6: Technologies that Reveal Brain StructuresChapter 7: Technologies that Reveal Brain FunctionsChapter 8: Changing Brain FunctionsChapter 9: Limitations and CautionsChapter 10: Where We Might Be HeadedAfterwordFurther Readings and ResourcesGlossary

Extremely useful for the average lawyer, this handy primer talks us through the basic structures and functions of the brain in a clear and interesting way. I found this to be a very helpful guide.