Neurolaw - History

History

Neuroscience and the law have interacted over a long history, but interest spiked in the late 1990s. After the term neurolaw was first coined by Sherrod J. Taylor in 1991, scholars from both fields began to network through presentations and dialogs. This led to an increasing pull to publish books, articles, and other literature. The Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research and the Dana Foundation were the first groups to provide funding for the new interdisciplinary field. Parallel to the expansion of neurolaw, an emergence of ethics specifically regarding neuroscience was developing as well. The intersection of neurolaw and ethics was able to be better scrutinized by the initiation of the Law and Neuroscience Project in 2007. The MacArthur Foundation launched Phase I of its project through a $10 million grant in hope of integrating the two fields. The initiative sustained forty projects addressing a multitude of issues, including experimental and theoretical data that will provide further evidence as to how neuroscience may eventually shape the law. This new field of study has also piqued the interests of several universities. Baylor College of Medicine's Initiative on Neuroscience and the Law’s research seeks to research, educate, and make policy change. The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Neuroscience and Society began in July 2009, and is working towards confronting the social, legal, and ethical inferences of neuroscience.