Pages: 7

Albus Dumbledore: “It is our choices … that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

Pages: 21

Behavioral economics and neuroeconomics are two relatively new disciplines that are dedicated to the study of decision making in humans. Although the two fields share similarities, they have somewhat different goals. This chapter will give a brief history of behavioral economics and neuroeconomics. These fields arose in reaction to the neoclassical economics approach that dominated in the early twentieth century. The focus of behavioral economics, a subfield of economics, is to create realistic, descriptive models of human decision making that incorporate psychological principles. The focus of neuroeconomics, on the other hand, is to use knowledge of the mechanisms underlying choices in order to create more realistic models of choice. This chapter will describe some of the major insights to emerge from these fields so far. It will also discuss how findings from behavioral economics and neuroeconomics have been applied in areas such as public policy and marketing.

Pages: 19

The concept of free will has been debated for centuries. Is it possible that neuroscience can contribute, and maybe even settle the debate? We will argue that the answer depends on what one means by free will. We begin by broadly differentiating 1) “libertarian free will,” which proposes that human decisions occur through a force that is external to (and incompatible with) the chain of causality that governs the physical world, vs. 2) “compatibilist free will,” which proposes instead that actions are free when they are consistent with certain aspects of the decision-maker’s mental states, especially their beliefs and goals. We review attempts to use neuroscience to empirically disprove libertarian free will but argue that the compelling bases to reject it are found elsewhere. We primarily focus on compatibilist free will, which we argue can be assessed using the methods of neuroscience, especially through neuroeconomics. We consider 1) the literature identifying neural circuitry that instantiates habit-controlled action and 2) the literature on dual-systems control over goal directed action. We look at each of these concepts as applied to addiction and argue that both provide a basis for empirically assessing when free will (in the compatibilist sense) is or is not present.

Pages: 21

Neurolaw is an emerging interdisciplinary field that examines the interactions between brain science, ethics, and the legal system. This chapter provides an overview of the history of neurolaw, current neurolaw issues and debates, and potential future directions for the field.

Pages: 17

Neurolaw as an academic discipline concerns itself with the study of legal implications and applications of neuroscience and neurotechnology. Psychiatry has a considerable intersection with the law, and this intersection is often referred to as forensic psychiatry. If neurotechnology is used in forensic psychiatry, this is, therefore, relevant from a neurolaw perspective. In this chapter, we will focus on the interface between psychiatry and criminal law. In some criminal cases, the defendant’s behavior appears to be influenced by the presence of a mental illness. In such cases, psychiatrists can be asked for their expert opinion. Neuroimaging is sometimes used to evaluate a defendant’s condition. A brain scan may, for instance, reveal the presence of a tumor, or it may show signs of dementia. In light of the continuous progress in the neurosciences in the last decades, it is often assumed that in the near future, the role of neurotechnology in forensic psychiatry may increase. Neurotechnology could perhaps also be used to make better assessments of risk of recidivism and potentially to reduce the risk of dangerous behavior. This chapter will consider neurolaw and psychiatry by looking at the current state of neurotechnology in forensic psychiatry as well as possible near-future developments. First, we will consider the state of the art; next, we will discuss legal and ethical challenges entailed by the (possible future) application of neurotechnology in forensic psychiatry. Topics include reliability, safety, risk, and consent.

Pages: 14

In this chapter, written from a neuroscientist’s perspective, I argue that behavior is deterministic but in a manner that is complex, with a large element of randomness to it. In criminal law, the existence or lack of free will goes to the heart of assigning responsibility, culpability, and punishment. Thus, determining whether someone acts of his/her own agency becomes very important in deciding the nature of punishment. I argue for a shift of legal sentencing from punitive to correctional. The purpose of law is to maintain social order and ensure safety. The nature of incarceration should depend purely on maintaining that goal. As neuroscience progresses and more behavioral aberrations become treatable based on mechanistic understanding of brain function, many offenses that currently require incarceration may be treatable without the need to sequester a person from society. There is a need for neuroscience education among practitioners of law and other social sciences. In this context, a center that cross-fertilizes the two disciplines is sorely needed.

Pages: 17

Neuroscience research has made substantial progress for how we perceive psychiatric illnesses. This work has helped operationalize brain circuits to better understand the connections between brain and behavior and identify pathways that are altered in psychiatric disorders. This work spans genes to neurotransmitters and neurocircuits, and translational studies have used functional brain imaging to test those mechanisms in humans in vivo. After a century of more parallel coexistence of those two fields, the past few decades have been marked by an increasing integration and moving psychiatry from a more psychodynamically oriented perspective to a field that recognizes biological markers underlying behavior and that can be targeted with biological interventions. This has far-reaching implications for diagnosing psychiatric illnesses, treatment development and how we teach psychiatry.

Pages: 19

This chapter provides an overview of the field of neuroethics. The first section of the chapter tackles the neurobiology of ethics. It addresses the evolution of ethical behaviors and summarizes evidence for the involvement of specific brain structures in ethical behavior. The second section deals with the ethics of neuroscience and discusses example issues arising from neuroscience research and the development and use of neurotechnologies. The chapter emphasizes the need for well-thought-out regulatory policies to tackle the rapid encroachment of technologies into our brains, impinging on the sense of self.

Pages: 11

The capacity for evaluation (i.e., sensitivity to reward signals and the ability to discriminate between good and bad things in the world on the basis of specific needs, motivations, and goals) is a defining feature of biological organisms, namely of the human brain. Evaluation has been posited as a fundament of learning and memory (Dehaene and Changeux 1989; Edelman 1992), as well as of consciousness and ethical deliberation (Evers 2009). AI may be programmed to discriminate between what humans consider good and bad things in the world, and it is also conceivable that AI will be increasingly autonomous in applying this distinction (e.g., through the optimization of self-learning algorithms through reinforcement learning paradigms). However, this does not entail it “evaluating” in the sense that it autonomously performs an evaluation or subjectively experiences an evaluation that may be performed without any real ethical reasoning. Therefore, it seems premature to attribute moral agency to present AI, despite some technical attempts to advance in that direction.

Pages: 17

Over the last century, research has expanded our understanding of the neuroscience of humor. This chapter provides a review of this literature in three sections. First, the chapter introduces the historical origins of the research and contrasting theoretical perspectives. Second, the chapter describes research findings on humor and the brain, including how humor appreciation changes in older adulthood and how humor appreciation is affected by neurological disorders (e.g., stroke, traumatic brain injury, and degenerative brain diseases). The section also surveys recent brain imaging research on the processing of humor, highlighting the major brain regions and their possible roles in humor processing. The chapter concludes with implications for using humor for therapeutic interventions to promote mental and physical health.

Pages: 19

This chapter reviews the relationship between the brain and religious and spiritual phenomena, a field now referred to as neurotheology. The discussion includes objective and subjective methods for measuring the effects of various practices and experiences that are described as religious or spiritual. Challenges in terms of definitions of terms and the use of various methodologies are considered. The variety of spiritual experiences is also discussed, as are the various approaches towards evaluating such experiences. Experiences associated with various practices such as meditation or prayer, psychedelics, and disease states are discussed. Neuroscientific models of religious and spiritual experiences are reviewed as well as limitations when developing such models. Finally, neuroepistemological questions are discussed in light of the current state of the field and how findings challenge philosophical and theological questions.