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This is your brain. This is your brain on justice.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009 3:29 PM - By Kashmir Hill

brain.jpgHaving traveled down to D.C. to cover the Woodstock of Washington, we’ve fallen behind a bit in our Wall Street Journal reading. So a “Science Journal” article from Friday’s edition only just came to our attention: The Brain, Your Honor, Will Take the Witness Stand.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have identified the parts of the brain that become active when we render legal decisions. The study is part of a larger $10 million three-year project funded by the MacArthur Foundation to study how “experimental brain findings may alter traditional notions of guilt, responsibility and choice.”

Vanderbilt law professor Owen Jones collaborated with researchers for the experiment. We’re guessing he came up with the legal questions posed to 16 volunteers as their brain activity was monitored with an MRI machine.Two areas of the brain became active as the guinea pigs thought about “50 hypothetical scenarios ranging from theft of a music CD to rape and murder.” It seems like 12 volunteers would have been more appropriate, perhaps with two alternates.

Any hoo. Here’s what they found:

No one part of the brain stands in judgment of others, they found. Instead, at least two areas of the brain assess guilt and assign an appropriate penalty. An area associated with analytical reasoning, called the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, became very active, they reported. But the decision process also electrified emotional circuits.

[One of the researchers] Dr. Marois found so much emotional activity during an impartial legal decision surprising. “This reasoning may not be so detached. It shattered my preconceived ideas of the legal system,” says Dr. Marois. “But for a lawyer, maybe it doesn’t.”

Our ideas of the legal system aren’t shattered. Our ideas about the insight of researchers are a bit wobbly.

More about studies to come, including one on “a group of inmates diagnosed as psychopaths,” after the jump.

This first experiment was conducted with 16 volunteers, who we assume have a “normal” conception of crime, guilt, and punishment. Next, researchers will look at those with the weakest legal minds and those with the strongest:

To discern any differences in the ability to weigh crime and punishment, Prof. Jones and his colleagues are scheduled next week to conduct the brain-scanning experiment among a group of inmates diagnosed as psychopaths, who make up one-fifth of the male inmates in U.S. maximum-security prisons. In June, the researchers plan to carry out their brain-scanning experiment with state and federal judges who volunteer to have their decision-making faculties probed.

The question is always, how will this actually be used in the long run? Maybe one day an MRI could replace the LSAT as part of the law school application.

The Brain, Your Honor, Will Take the Witness Stand [Wall Street Journal]

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