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 BlurbJanuary 2015

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ALCOHOL & SUBSTANCE ABUSE

U.S. Painkiller Abuse 'Epidemic' May Be Declining, Study Says. U.S. NEWS. A new study suggests that the
U.S. "epidemic" of prescription-painkiller abuse may be starting to reverse course. The studys
findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that recent laws and prescribing
guidelines aimed at preventing painkiller abuse are working to some degree. Researchers found that
after rising for years, Americans' abuse and diversion of prescription narcotics declined from 2011
through 2013. Overdose deaths, meanwhile, started to dip in 2009. The findings are based on data
from five monitoring programs -- four of which showed the same pattern of declining prescription
painkiller abuse. However, heroin abuse and overdoses are on the rise. (January 14, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/mubo5vb
Up in Smoke or Bottoms Up: How Policy Could Affect Substance Abuse. SCIENCEDAILY. Researchers from
Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health investigated the impact that the availability
and permissibility of marijuana has had on American substance abuse. The researchers analyzed
7,191 fatal accidents involving drivers between the ages of 16 and 25 from the states of California,
Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Washington State and
West Virginia. Overall, 50.3% of the deceased tested positive for alcohol, marijuana or both. Of
these, 36.8 percent were under the influence of alcohol, 5.9 percent used only marijuana, and 7.6
percent used both substances. The team found no significant substitution effect between alcohol
and marijuana. Rather, the increased marijuana availability seems to have resulted in an increase in
the prevalence of concurrent use of alcohol and marijuana. (January 12, 2015)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150112181317.htm
Alcohol Poisoning Kills 6 Americans a Day. TIME. According to a new Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) report 2,200 people dying each year from alcohol poisoning. Thats an average of
six alcohol-related deaths a day. Additionally, the report revealed that over 38 million Americans
binge drink an average of four times a month and consume an average of eight drinks per binge.
Interestingly, it also indicates that the majority of alcohol poisoning deaths happen in adults between
the ages of 35 and 64, and 76% of those who die are men, revealing binge drinking is not a behavior
solely observed among young people. The CDC added that these numbers are likely an
underestimate because hospitals are known to underreport alcohol-related deaths. (January 6, 2015)
http://time.com/3655487/6-americans-die-every-day-from-alcohol-poisoning/
LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
BPA and 'BPA-Free' Alternative Linked to Fetal Brain Changes. L.A. TIMES. Researchers from the
University of Calgary have shown why a chemical once thought to be a safe alternative to bisphenolA, which was abandoned by manufacturers of baby bottles and sippy cups after a public outcry,
might be more harmful than BPA. This research is the first to show that bisphenol-S, an ingredient
in many products bearing BPA-free labels, causes abnormal neuron growth surges in animal
embryos. The researchers identified a disruption of prenatal cellular activity in zebra fish, which
share 80 percent of their genes with humans and are considered a good model for studying human
brain development, which seemed to result in hyperactivity. (January 12, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/pageljt

BNLC BlurbJanuary 2015

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Fast Food Consumption Is Out of Controland it Could Be Blunting Childrens Brains. WASHINGTON POST.
Fast food consumption isn't merely connected to increases in weightit is tied to
significant decreases in test scores among school children. Researchers at Ohio State University used
data from a sample of some 11,700 children to measure how fast food affects performance in class.
The study measured how much fast food the children were eating at age 10, and then compared the
consumption levels to test results in reading, math, and science three years later. They found that
even small increases in the frequency with which the students ate fast food were associated with
poorer academic test results. The connection held true even after the researchers took into account
more than a dozen other factors about the children's habits and backgrounds. (December 23, 2014)
http://tinyurl.com/ocfw5rj
MENTAL ILLNESS
Multi-Drug Approach Could Be Way to Treat Alzheimers, Study Suggests. WASHINGTON POST. A study that
appears in Natures peer-reviewed online journal concluded that preclinical studies suggest that
combining two approved drugsacamprosate calcium and baclofencan have a synergistic impact
in alleviating cognitive impairment and protecting the brains neurons and blood vessels from
Alzheimers-related damage. The findings, which were obtained in laboratory cultures and animal
testing, suggest the way forward to treating Alzheimers disease could be the same method
discovered years ago to treat HIV. Daniel Cohen, an author of the study, explained that when
companies use already known drugs at lower doses than usually prescribed to create a new
treatment, the resulting cocktail usually is approved therapy in a shorter time than it takes to develop
new drugs. (January 8, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/lfjvzhd
War Veterans: Researchers Point to Impact of Combined Brain Injury, PTSD. SCIENCEDAILY. Researchers
have exposed new information about the combined cognitive effects of mild traumatic brain injury
(mTBI) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in war veterans. A recent study suggests that 12 to
16 percent of all veterans involved in the Iraqi conflict have a history of mTBI and an estimated 13
to 17 percent of veterans return with a diagnosis of PTSD resulting from an injury. One-third of all
veterans with a TBI also suffer from PTSD. Results of the study suggest that veterans suffering
from both conditions have poorer cognitive and psychological outcomes than veterans diagnosed
with only one of the conditions. The research also raises the possibility that mTBI results in
persistent but mild cognitive challenges for some veterans. (December 22, 2014)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150105125832.htm
TRIAL ISSUES
People Can Be Convinced They Committed a Crime That Never Happened. SCIENCEDAILY. New research
published in Psychological Science provides lab-based evidence demonstrating that research participants
can be convinced, over the course of a few hours, that they perpetrated crimes as serious as assault
with a weapon. The researchers identified 60 students who had not been involved in any of the
crimes designated as false memory targets. These students were brought to a lab for three 40-minute
interviews over a three-week span. During the first interview sessions, researchers told the students
about two events that they had experienced as teens, only one of which actually happened. The false
events related either to a crime that resulted in contact with the police or an emotional event, such as
BNLC BlurbJanuary 2015

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a personal injury. All false event stories included some true details about that time in the student's
life. In the second and third interviews researchers asked the students to recall as much as they could
about both events. Of the 30 participants who were told they had committed a crime as a teenager,
21 (71%) were classified as having developed a false memory of the crime; of the 20 who were told
about an assault of some kind (with or without a weapon), 11 reported elaborate false memory
details of their exact dealings with the police. This research suggests that criminal suspects can be
questioned in ways that lead them to confess to crimes they did not commit.(January 15, 2015)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150115102835.htm
Washington State Teen Who Was Shaken as a Baby Dies; Father Likely to Be Charged. N.Y. TIMES. A
Washington state teenager who suffered life-long injuries after her father violently shook her as an
infant has died. The coroners office ruled that her death was a homicide, a result of being "shaken
as an infant." According to court records the teens biological father was convicted in 2000 of
second-degree child abuse for shaking the girl as an infant, leaving her severely physically and
mentally impaired. The local prosecutors office said that it would likely pursue charges against him.
(January 14, 2015)
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/01/14/us/14reuters-usa-washington-abuse.html
The Teenage Brain of the Boston Bomber. THE MARSHALL PROJECT. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was 19, legally
an adult, at the time of the Boston Marathon bombing. His attorney has made statements suggesting
an interest in applying brain researchthat young adults remain susceptible to peer influence well
into their twentiesas mitigating evidence at trial, hoping that the judge will remove the possibility
that Tsarnaev will receive the death penalty. Research indicates that the brain has not finished
developing by age 18. Specifically, the brain is still undergoing myelination, a process in which a
white, fatty substance coats nerve fibers, gradually improving the brains ability to make the neural
connections necessary to plan ahead, weigh risks and rewards, and make complex decisions.
Additional research on radicalization shows that young adults are often attracted to terrorist
movements through loving relationships, particularly with siblings who hold extreme beliefs. This
could be relevant to Tsarnaev given the likelihood that his 26-year-old brother, who may have
had contact with Muslim insurgents during a trip to Dagestan in 2012, influenced his
actions. (January 8, 2015)
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/01/08/the-teenage-brain-of-the-boston-bomber
JURY-RELATED ISSUES
Memory Recall 'Better When Eyes Shut'. BBC. Closing your eyes when trying to recall events increases
the chances of accuracy, researchers at the University of Surrey suggest. Scientists tested people's
ability to remember details of films showing fake crime scenes. Writing in the journal Legal and
Criminological Psychology, scientists tested 178 participants in two experiments. In the first, they asked
volunteers to watch a film showing an electrician entering a property, carrying out work, and then
stealing a number of items. Volunteers were then questioned in one of four groups. People were
either asked questions with their eyes open or closed, and after researchers either built a sense of
rapport or had not attempted build rapport. People who had some rapport with their interviewer
and had their eyes shut throughout questioning answered 75% of the 17 questions correctly. Those
who did not have a friendly introduction with the interviewer and had their eyes open answered 41%
correctly. (January 15, 2015)
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30834038
BNLC BlurbJanuary 2015

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Stress Is 'Barrier to Feeling Empathy for Strangers. BBC. In a study published in Current Biology, researchers
treated mice with a stress-blocking drug and watched their response when confronted with other
mice in pain. They found that the mice became more empathetic and more compassionate to
strangers, reacting in a way they would normally react to familiar mice. When the mice were put
under stress, they showed less empathy towards other mice in pain. Tests in undergraduate students
using the same drug showed exactly the same effect. They were asked to rate the pain of a friend or
stranger whose hand was plunged into ice-cold water for 30 seconds. Students who took the drug
reported feeling the pain of a stranger more deeply than those who did not take it. (January 15, 2015)
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30831145
FOREIGN POLICY
Tragic Case Prompts India to Adopt a Law Permitting Passive Euthanasia. WASHINGTON POST. Last
month, India adopted a landmark Supreme Court decision to allow passive euthanasia for patients
who are in a permanent vegetative state or are declared brain-dead. The procedure
involves withdrawing medical treatment and allowing death to occur as opposed to active
euthanasia, in which a life is ended through a lethal dose of drugs or other means. While the law on
passive euthanasia is historic, the practice may not find wide acceptance among Indians. According
to Shubhangi Parkar, dean of the KEM Hospital and Medical College in India, We come from a
culture which believes in destiny, duty and compassion . . . . We are not an individualistic society like
the West. Analysts say that the law is a sign that Indian society is changing in fundamental ways.
(January 2, 2015)
http://tinyurl.com/k48mgq6
Pregnant Woman Taken Off Life Support in Ireland. TIME. A brain-dead pregnant woman was taken off
life support Friday after a court ruled that her 18-week-old fetus was doomed to die. The three-judge
Dublin High Court said that all artificial support for the woman should end more than three weeks
after she was declared clinically dead. In their 29-page ruling, the judges accepted testimony from
seven doctors who said the fetus couldnt survive for the extra two months of development needed
to safely deliver the fetus. The doctors detailed how the womans body was becoming a lethal
environment rife with infections, fungal growths, fever, and high blood pressure. Irelands Supreme
Court was put on standby for an appeal, given the constitutional questions at stake. But lawyers
representing the rights of the woman and of the fetus said they accepted the ruling from the
countrys second-highest court. However, the judges did leave open the possibility that future cases
might be handled differently if the fetus was significantly closer to delivery age. (December 26, 2014)
http://time.com/3647599/ireland-abortion-life-support/

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BNLC BlurbJanuary 2015

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