Behavioral & Neuroscience Law Committee (BNLC)

News and Research Blurb

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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

BNLC BlurbApril 2015

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SUBSTANCE ABUSE & ADDICTION

E-Cigarette Use Triples among Middle and High School Students, Study Says. N.Y. TIMES. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of middle and high school
students using electronic cigarettes has tripled from 2013 to 2014 and the number of students using
traditional cigarettes has gone down. Although the director of the CDC condemned the spike, a
professor at Boston Universitys School of Public Health believes the decline in traditional smoking
is a success. E-cigarette use is controversial because the scientific community has not determined
what vaping does to the human body and because the federal government does not regulate ecigarettes. For example, e-cigarette manufacturers do not face the same advertising restrictions that
apply to traditional cigarettes. However, numerous cities and states have passed laws restricting sales
to minors and banning the devices in public places. (April 16, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/pczjyq9
What Binge Drinking during Adolescence Does to the Brain. TIME. A study published in the journal
Neurobiology of Disease demonstrates that binge drinking during adolescence may interfere with brain
development and have lasting consequences on genes and behavior. In the study, researchers
mimicked adolescent binge drinking in a population of rats by giving them alcohol for two days in a
row, restricting alcohol access for two days, and repeating these steps for two weeks. Researchers
discovered that the binge-drinking rats preferred alcohol to water when they were older and
displayed more anxiety-like behaviors compared to rats that did not drink. Researchers also noted
epigenetic changes in the rats (changes to DNA caused by chemicals or environmental substances).
They believe that some of the rats behavior could be explained by these brain changes and found
that a cancer drau reversed some of these effects. (April 3, 2015)
http://time.com/3770755/binge-drinking-adolescence-brain/
Legally High? Teenagers and Prescription Drug Abuse. SCIENCEDAILY. According to a new study in Journal
of Public Policy & Marketing, awareness of the dangers of illegal drugs has increased, but many
teenagers are ignorant of the physical dangers posed by legally prescribed drugs. Researchers
recruited teens in shopping malls across the United States, asking them to complete a web-based
questionnaire on their alcohol, tobacco, and legal and illegal drug use. Researchers then asked
whether the teenagers struggled with anxiety, felt a desire to be popular, sought out exciting
activities, and what level of risk they associated with prescription drugs. Generally, prescription drug
use increased in proportion to psychological states such as anxiety, and use of restricted substances
such as alcohol. However, prescription drug abuse accelerated exponentially under certain
conditions, such as when the level of anxiety or desire to be popular was at its highest. Researchers
hope that schools will use this information to target at-risk students. (March 24, 2015)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150324111506.htm
JUVENILE ISSUES
New Brain Science Shows Poor Kids Have Smaller Brains than Affluent Kids. WASH. POST. A recent study,
published in Nature Neuroscience, shows that poor children have smaller brains than affluent children.
Neuroscientists from Columbia University and the Los Angeles Childrens Hospital studied brain
scans of nearly 1,100 children and young adults nationwide from ages 3 to 20 and found that the
surface area of the cerebral cortex, which handles language, memory, spatial skills and reasoning, was
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linked to family income. Specifically, they discovered that the brains of children in families that
earned less than $25,000 a year had surface areas 6 percent smaller than those whose families earned
$150,000 or more. The poor children also scored lower on average on a battery of cognitive tests.
The researchers have two theories about why poor children have smaller brains: poor families lack
access to material goods that aid healthy development, such as good nutrition and higher-quality
health care; and poor families tend to live more chaotic lives, which leads to stress that could inhibit
healthy brain development. (April 15, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/qd4cdkm
Mental Disorders and Physical Diseases Co-Occur in Teenagers. SCIENCEDAILY. Researchers from the
University of Basel and the Ruhr-Universitt Bochum reported that every third teenager has
suffered from one mental disorder and one physical disease. These co-occurrences come in specific
associations: More often than average, depression occurs with diseases of the digestive system,
eating disorders with seizures, and anxiety disorders together with arthritis, heart disease as well as
diseases of the digestives system. The researchers analyzed data from a national representative
cohort of 6,482 U.S. teenagers aged 13 to 18. The research team hopes that future projects will focus
on identifying the biological and psychological mechanisms responsible for these associations. Once
this is done, doctors should be able to develop interdisciplinary approaches that will result in better
treatment for children and healthier adult populations. (April 8, 2015)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150408085900.htm
Feds: Baltimore Jail Illegally Keeping Juveniles in Solitary. ATLANTA J. CONST. According to the United
States Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, teenagers awaiting trial on adult charges in
Baltimore are being kept in solitary confinement for far too long. Federal prosecutors say being
isolated for more than a few days can damage a person's mental health especially if it's a teenager
whose brain is still developing. But teenagers accused of breaking rules inside the Baltimore City
Detention Center (BCDC) are being isolated for 13 days on average, and in some cases, far longer.
For example, one minor spent 143 days in seclusion. When juveniles are accused of breaking a rule
in the BCDC, they are put into seclusion for 7 to 14 days for a first offense, and must wait roughly
80 days before a disciplinary hearing is held. The Justice Department concluded that this practice
was grossly excessive and violates basic principles of Due Process. (March 27, 2015)
http://time.com/3770755/binge-drinking-adolescence-brain/
NEUROSCIENCE
Here's What Happens in the Brain When People Kill. TIME. A study published in the journal Social
Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience examined how the brain reacts when it confronts murder in moral
contexts. Researchers from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, recruited 48 subjects and
asked them to submit to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they watched three
different first-person scenarios. In the first scenario, a soldier killed an enemy soldier; in the second,
the soldier killed a civilian; and in the last, used as a control, the soldier shot a weapon but hit no
one. At the end of each scenario, researchers asked the participants identify who they shot and
rate their guilt on a 1 to 7 scale. The researchers identified greater activity in the lateral portion of the
orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a region of the forebrain associated with moral processing, when
subjects imagined shooting civilians than when they shot soldiers. There was also more coupling
between the OFC and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ)with the OFC effectively saying I feel
guilty and the TPJ effectively answering You should. Significantly, the degree of OFC activation
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correlated with how bad the subjects reported they felt on their 1 to 7 scale, with greater activity in
the brains of people who reported feeling greater guilt. (April 10, 2015)
http://time.com/3816212/brain-murder-morality/
TRIAL-RELATED ISSUES
Mentally Disabled Man Convicted of Murder Freed after Ruling. WASH. POST. After 26 years in prison and
10 days after the Connecticut Supreme Court threw out his convictions for the rape and murder of
his wifes grandmother, Richard Lapointe, a 69-year-old mentally disabled man, was freed on a
$250,000 bond. At his 1992 trial, he was convicted of killing Bernice Martin, who police found
stabbed, raped, and strangled in her Manchester apartment. Lapointe confessed to the crime after a
9 1/2 hour interrogation. The trial court judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility
of release. The Court ruled that prosecutors deprived Lapointe of a fair trial because they failed to
disclose a police officers notes that suggest Lapointe had an alibi. Lapointes lawyer and supporters
assert that the evidence also showed Martin was tortured and killed over a long period of time by
someone who had killed before. They say their client, with limited mental and physical abilities and
no criminal history, could not have committed the crimes. (April 10, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/k5maa56
DOMESTIC POLICY
Court Considers When Dementia Makes Person Unable to Consent. B. GLOBE. A man accused of raping his
wife in a nursing home is forcing an Iowa court to confront a little-discussed question of aging:
When is a person who suffers from dementia unable to consent to sex? The case centers on Henry
and Donna Lou Rayhons, both 78. Last year, Donna Lou moved into a nursing home because she
was diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimers disease. The nursing home staff told her husband that
his wife was no longer capable of consenting to sex. Henry allegedly ignored the warning and,
consequentially, state prosecutors filed sexual assault charges against him. Legal analysts could not
recall another rape case that happened because a previously consenting spouse could no longer
legally acquiesce. (April 8, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/peplt5n
Federal Judge in Seattle Orders End to Long Jail Holds for Mentally Ill. REUTERS. U.S. District Judge Marsha
Pechman ordered Washington State to end long jail terms for criminal defendants awaiting mental
competency exams because such actions violated the U.S. Constitutions due process clause.
Washington state law already requires that government officials perform mental competency
evaluations within seven days on defendants who charged with a crime and who might be mentally
incompetent to stand trial. But in recent years, defendants were left waiting for up to six months,
some in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, partly because of staff and funding shortages at the
state's Department of Social and Health Services. (April 3, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/lbovvea
California Bill That Would Allow Assisted Suicide Passes Senate Panel. N.Y. TIMES. A recent bill, passed by
the Californias Senate Health Committee, would allow mentally competent patients who have fewer
than six months to live to obtain prescriptions for medication to end their lives. The California bill is
moving through the legislature at a time when the issue of physician-assisted suicide has captured
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public attention following the death of Brittany Maynard last fall. Maynard, who was diagnosed with
brain cancer at 29, moved from California to Oregon, where physician assisted suicide is legal, dying
there because California forbids the practice. The bill is opposed by disability rights activists, who
fear it would lead to the deaths of vulnerable people at the hands of unscrupulous relatives or
caregivers. They also fear insurance companies will push assisted suicide for those whose care is
expensive. If California passes the bill, it would become one of a handful of U.S. states that allow
assisted suicide, including Oregon and Washington. (March 25, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/lj72wxt
Supreme Court Weighs Rights of the Mentally Ill, Disabled in Confrontations with Police. U.S. NEWS. The
nation's highest court will consider how police must comply with the Americans With Disabilities
Act when dealing with armed or violent people who have psychiatric problems or other disabilities.
The case involves a 2008 incident in San Francisco in which police responded to a call from a group
home for the mentally ill. A resident who suffers from schizophrenia, Teresa Sheehan, threatened to
kill her social worker with a knife and locked herself in her room. The social worker asked the police
to help restrain Sheehan and get her to a hospital where she could be treated. San Francisco officials
argue the law does not require police to make accommodations for an armed and violent suspect
who is mentally ill. (March 21, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/qzqv2b4

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BNLC BlurbApril 2015

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