How the Evolving State of Neuroscience Informs the Definition of Adulthood: a Psychiatrist’s Perspective

Abstract

Deliberating on the state of the science underlying the prediction of dangerousness and the application of that science is a weight carried by the law. Over the past few decades new technologies have allowed neuroscience to document intricacies of the developing brain. As neuroscience has expanded and refined the evidence of biopsychosocial influences on brain development, neurolaw has considered the implications of the scientific research for criminal law. Assigning an age for the onset of adulthood is a sociolegal construct. Science cannot assign an exact age to adulthood. Neuroscience has established that brain development continues through the mid-twenties, but exposure to adverse childhood experiences, perinatal exposures and conditions, and genetic pre-disposition to mental illness changes this trajectory so that neither the course nor endpoints are fixed. The Court holds the responsibility to apply the law to an individual set of circumstances but often asks psychiatrists what factors help explain an individual’s actions or state of mind and to apply the science and the art of medicine to help explain the individual. However, a psychiatrist’s testimony is a tool used by attorneys to further an argument. Is the law ready to accept the neuroscience of emerging adulthood and does it meet Daubert are ever-evolving question and answer sets as studies are repeated and the evidence mounts regarding brain development. Even so, at the end of the day, what psychiatrists know to be true or science accepts to be fact is not the same as policy or law. Many other factors are at play.