Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), identifies drug use disorder as the public health crisis of our time.
Judge Irene M. Keeley (N.D. W. Va.) introduces this series, designed to provide judges with a basic understanding of opioid use and its effect on the federal courts, and outlines the objective: to equip judges with a series of takeaways they can readily apply in their respective courts.
This module provides a brief introduction to the brain and central nervous system. Dr. Andrea H. Gaede, a Science & Technology Policy Judicial Fellow from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), answers the following questions:
Senior District Judge Jed S. Rakoff elucidates the purpose of this web-based neuroscience program and highlights the important, continuing role neuroscience research plays in the legal system.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a rich area of research that is growing in public interest and increasing in funding due to the rising awareness of brain injuries related to military service and athletic activities. This module highlights the ways in which TBI may alter brain function.
In this module, Dr. Craig Stark from the University of California, Irvine, discusses how memory is encoded in the brain, how memories can be manipulated, and why these topics are relevant to the courts. He addresses the following questions:
In this module, Dr. David Thomas, founding member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pain Consortium, provides an overview of the neuroscience of pain and seeks to answer the following questions:
Dr. Walter Koroshetz, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and Dr. Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), provide insight into the current trajectory of neuroscience research.
In this module, Amanda C. Pustilnik, professor of law at the University of Maryland, discusses approaches that judges could employ when evaluating emerging neurotechnology. She provides insight into the following questions: