Brain fingerprinting field study on major, terrorist crimes supports the brain fingerprinting scientific standards hypothesis: classification concealed information test with P300 and P300-MERMER succeeds; comparison CIT fails.

We conducted (I) 18 event-related potential (ERP) field tests to detect concealed information regarding major terrorist crimes and other real-world crimes and (II) 5 ERP tests regarding participation in a classified counterterrorism operation. This study is a test of the brain fingerprinting scientific standards hypothesis: that a specific set of methods for event-related potential (ERP) concealed information tests (CIT) known as the brain fingerprinting scientific standards provide the sufficient conditions to produce less than 1% error rate and greater than 95% median statistical confidence for individual determinations of whether the tested information is stored in each subject's brain. All previous published results in all laboratories are compatible with this hypothesis. We recorded P300 and P300-MERMER ERP responses to visual text stimuli of three types: targets contain known information, irrelevants contain unknown/irrelevant information, and probes contain the situation-relevant information to be tested, known only to the perpetrator and investigators. Classification CIT produced significantly better results than comparison CIT, independent of classification criteria. Classification CIT had 0% error rate; comparison CIT had 6% error rate. As in previous studies, classification-CIT median statistical confidences were approximately 99%, whereas comparison CIT statistical confidences were no better than chance for information-absent (IA) subjects (who did not know the tested information). Over half of the comparison-CIT IA determinations were invalid due to a less-than-chance computed probability of being correct. Experiment (I) results for median statistical confidence: Classification CIT, IA subjects: 98.6%; information-present (IP) subjects (who know the tested information): 99.9%; comparison CIT, IA subjects: 48.7%; IP subjects: 99.5%. Experiment (II) results (Classification CIT): error rate 0%, median statistical confidence 96.6%. Countermeasures had no effect on the classification CIT. These results, like all previous results in our laboratory and all others, support the brain fingerprinting scientific standards hypothesis and indicate that the classification CIT is a necessary condition for a reliable, accurate, and valid brainwave-based CIT. The comparison CIT, by contrast, produces high error rates and IA statistical confidences no better than chance. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11571-022-09795-1.

Neural responses to morally laden interactions in female inmates with psychopathy.

Much of social cognition requires making inferences about the mental and emotional states of others. Moreover, understanding the emotions of others is an important foundation for moral decision-making. Psychopathy is associated with both aberrant emotional understanding and atypical hemodynamic responses when viewing and evaluating morally laden social interactions. In the present functional MRI study, female inmates (N = 107) were asked to evaluate the likely emotional state of either the recipient or the initiator of harmful or helpful interactions. Psychopathy was assessed with the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). PCL-R scores were not associated with differences in confidence or accuracy ratings. However, psychopathy scores were significantly related to increased hemodynamic response in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex when viewing harmful interactions and decreased functional connectivity from right amygdala to inferior parietal cortex and insula, and from temporal parietal junction to dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Overall, this work indicates that in females, psychopathy is associated with normal behavioral accuracy and confidence but alterations in neural network activity during moral decision-making.

Las Neurociencias Forenses: El nuevo Paradigma Penal / Forsensic Neurosciences: The New Criminal Paradigm

Resumen Las neurociencias están en medio de un resurgimiento del interés en la dimensión biológica de los estados mentales y la conducta humana, aún más con su introducción en el ámbito ce la criminología biosocial y el sistema penal. La introducción de nuevas disciplinas en el ámbito penal representa un reto al momento de validarlas como una herramienta útil para el proceso, dado que cada vertiente tendrá puntos a favor y en contra de ellas, por lo cuál es fundamental analizar de forma crítica la utilidad, viabilidad y grado de certeza que ofrezcan dichas disciplinas. Al margen de las neurociencias forenses, resulta predominante analizarlas de forma integral, biológica, psicológica, ética y legal, con la finalidad de que las aportaciones que esta rama ofrezca al estado de derecho sean objetivas y aptas para el sistema penal de cada circunstancia temporal y social en que se implementen.

Abstract Neurosciences are in the midst of a resurgence of interest in the biological dimension of human mental states and behavior, even more so with the introduction of biosocial criminology and the penal system into the field. The introduction of new disciplines in the criminal field represents a challenge when validating them as a useful tool for the process, given that each aspect will have points for and against them, which is why it is essential to critically analyze the usefulness, viability and degree of certainty offered by these disciplines. Apart from forensic neurosciences, it is predominant to analyze them in an integral, biological, psychological, ethical and legal way, so that the contributions that this branch offers to the rule of law are objective and suitable for the criminal system of each temporary and social circumstance in which they are implemented.

Critical neuroscience-or critical science? A perspective on the perceived normative significance of neuroscience.

Members of the Critical Neuroscience initiative raised the question whether the perceived normative significance of neuroscience is justified by the discipline's actual possibilities. In this paper I show how brain research was assigned the ultimate political, social, and moral authority by some leading researchers who suggested that neuroscientists should change their research priorities, promising solutions to social challenges in order to increase research funds. Discussing the two examples of cognitive enhancement and the neuroscience of (im)moral behavior I argue that there is indeed a gap between promises and expectations on the one hand and knowledge and applications on the other. However it would be premature to generalize this to the neurosciences at large, whose knowledge-producing, innovative, and economic potentials have just recently been confirmed by political and scientific decision-makers with the financial support for the Human Brain Project and the BRAIN Initiative. Finally, I discuss two explanations for the analyzed communication patterns and argue why Critical Neuroscience is necessary, but not sufficient. A more general Critical Science movement is required to improve the scientific incentive system.