Neurophysiology and Criminal Behavior

We are gradually wrapping up several weeks of intensive study of neuroanatomy among other things, such as infectious disease. In a few weeks we'll start a round of tests and then we will be out for the summer. A lot of my classmates are feeling pretty burned out. Personally, I have a renewed sense of energy and purpose. I like what I'm studying even if I don't master it fully or forget important points. The information is really very interesting in and of itself. For me neuroanatomy has been a real eye-opener to the mind and brain. It's just amazing how scientists are now able to trace depression to physiological changes in the brain and are beginning to track down the development of Alzheimer's disease for current and future treatment.

One of the more remarkable aspects of this is an effort to trace issues such as criminal behavior to neurophysiology. It has been known for a long time, as in the study of the case of Phinease Gage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage) that damage to the frontal lobes can cause behavior that is at best not moral and can evidently become criminal. On Friday many students in our class will be attending a conference on neuroscience and law here at Baylor CM (www.neulaw.org). We hear of considerations from psychiatry and neuroscience in criminal and other aspects of law; here will be our chance to learn about some of the recent developments and their implications. We are still quite far away from being able to implant, say, a chip in the brain of a pedophile to change such a person's thoughts, but we can perhaps learn more about various ways that people can lose judgment and what that means in the legal context.