Abstract
In the last 25 years, magnetic resonance imaging technology has fundamentally changed how human brain development is conceptualized. Brain structures and the communication among them are now understood to change well into early adulthood in ways that impact maturity of judgment. The popular conversation about where to draw the line between childhood and adulthood for policy purposes has highlighted a number of complex neuroethical issues including: balancing responsibility and autonomy, the strengths and frailties of human competence, and decision making in the era of neuroimaging. In this chapter, two public policy issues: Informed consent and legal culpability are used to illustrate the emerging neuroethical challenges and opportunities involved in using neuroscience to inform child and adolescent policy.
This chapter begins with an overview of historical attempts to use biological benchmarks of adult maturity. This historical perspective is followed by an introduction to the neuroethical issues involved in informed consent and legal culpability for adolescents, and the brain and behavioral science that has been brought to bear on these policy questions. The focus of this scientific review is the development and deployment of the cognitive capacities that are the foundation of maturity of judgment during late childhood and adolescence: self-control, inhibition, emotion regulation, and vulnerability to peer influence. Finally, the opportunities and potential pitfalls involved in using brain science to inform child and adolescent policy are considered.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aber, L., Atkins, M., et al. (2012). Brief of Amici Curiae in No. 10–9646 & No. 10–9647.
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (2009). Tool kit for teen care. Washington, DC: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
American Psychological Association. (1989). Amicus curiae brief filed in U.S. Supreme Court in Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 497 U.S. 502 (1990) and Hodgson v. Min- nesota, 497 U.S. 417 (1990). Retrieved November 27, 2012, from http://www.apa.org/about/offices/ogc/amicus/hodgson.aspx
American Psychological Association and the Missouri Psychological Association. (2004). Amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States Supporting Christopher Simmons in Roper vs. Simmons (Case No. 03–633).
Anderson, P. (2002). Assessment and development of executive function (EF) during childhood. Neuropsychology, Development and Cognition, Section C: Child Neuropsychology, 8(2), 71–82.
Arnett, J. J. (1992). Reckless behavior in adolescence: A developmental perspective. Developmental Review, 12(4), 339–373.
Aronson, J. (2007). Brain imaging, culpability and the juvenile death penalty. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 13(2), 115–142.
Benes, F. M. (1998). Brain development, VII: Human brain growth spans decades: Carol A. Tamminga, M.D., Editor. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155(11), 1489.
Braitenberg, V. (2001). Brain size and number of neurons: An exercise in synthetic neuroanatomy. Journal of Computational Neuroscience, 10(1), 71–77.
Casey, B. J., Getz, S., et al. (2008). The adolescent brain. Developmental Review, 28(1), 62–77.
Cauffman, E., & Steinberg, L. (2012). Emerging findings from research on adolescent development and juvenile justice. Victims & Offenders, 7(4), 428–449.
Chein, J., Albert, D., et al. (2010). Peers increase adolescent risk taking by enhancing activity in the brain’s reward circuitry. Developmental Science, 14(2), F1–F10.
Cluxton-Brock, T. (1991). The evolution of parental care. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cunningham, M. G., Bhattacharyya, S., et al. (2002). Amygdalo-cortical sprouting continues into early adulthood: Implications for the development of normal and abnormal function during adolescence. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 453(2), 116–130.
Dahl, R. E. (2001). Affect regulation, brain development, and behavioral/emotional health in adolescence. CNS Spectrums, 6(1), 60–72.
Derish, M. T., & Heuvel, K. V. (2000). Mature minors should have the right to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment. The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics: A Journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 28(2), 109–124.
Dosenbach, N. U. F., Nardos, B., et al. (2010). Prediction of individual brain maturity using fMRI. Science, 329(5997), 1358–1361.
Ernst, M., Romeo, R. D., et al. (2009). Neurobiology of the development of motivated behaviors in adolescence: A window into a neural systems model. Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior, 93(3), 199–211.
Farah, M. J., & Hook, C. J. (2013). The seductive allure of “Seductive Allure”. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(1), 88–90.
Feld, B. (1993). Criminalizing the American juvenile court. In B. Tonry (Ed.), Crime and justice: An annual review of research (p. 17). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fields, R. D., & Stevens-Graham, B. (2002). New insights into neuron-glia communication. Science, 298(5593), 556–562.
Ford, C., Bearman, P. S., et al. (1999). Foregone health care among adolescents. JAMA, 282(23), 2227–2234.
Ford, C., English, A., et al. (2004). Confidential health care for adoelscents: Position paper of the Society for Adolescent Medicine. Journal of Adolescent Health, 35, 160–167.
Giedd, J. N., Blumenthal, J., et al. (1999). Brain development during childhood and adolescence: A longitudinal MRI study. Nature Neuroscience, 2(10), 861–863.
Grosbras, M. H., Jansen, M., et al. (2007). Neural mechanisms of resistance to peer influence in early adolescence. The Journal of Neuroscience, 27(30), 8040–8045.
Holzhaider, J. C., Hunt, G. R., et al. (2010). Social learning in New Caledonian crows. Learning & Behavior, 38(3), 206–219.
Hughes, V. (2010). Science in court: Head case. Nature, 464, 340–432.
Irwin, C. E. Jr., Millstein, S. G., et al. (1992). Risk-taking behaviors and biopsychosocial development during adolescence. In Emotion, cognition, health, and development in children and adolescents (pp. 75–102). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
James, T. (1960). The age of majority. The American Journal of Legal History, 4, 22–33.
Johnson, S. B., & Blum, R. W. (2012). Stress and the brain: How experiences and exposures across the life span shape health, development, and learning in adolescence. Journal of Adolescent Health, 51(2), S1–S2.
Johnson, S. B., Blum, R. W., et al. (2009). Adolescent maturity and the brain: The promise and pitfalls of neuroscience research in adolescent health policy. The Journal of Adolescent Health, 45(3), 216–221.
Luna, B., & Sweeney, J. A. (2004). The emergence of collaborative brain function: FMRI studies of the development of response inhibition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1021, 296–309.
Luna, B., Thulborn, K. R., et al. (2001). Maturation of widely distributed brain function subserves cognitive development. NeuroImage, 13(5), 786–793.
Luna, B., Padmanabhan, A., et al. (2010). What has fMRI told us about the development of cognitive control through adolescence? Brain and Cognition, 72(1), 101–113.
MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice. (2006). Issue Brief 3: Less guilty by reason of adolesence (September 21, 2006).
Olson, E. A., Collins, P. F., et al. (2009). White matter integrity predicts delay discounting behavior in 9- to 23-year-olds: A diffusion tensor imaging study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(7), 1406–1421.
Paus, T. (2010). Growth of white matter in the adolescent brain: Myelin or axon? Brain and Cognition, 72(1), 26–35.
Paus, T., Collins, D. L., et al. (2001). Maturation of white matter in the human brain: A review of magnetic resonance studies. Brain Research Bulletin, 54(3), 255–266.
Paus, T., Toro, R., et al. (2008). Morphological properties of the action-observation cortical network in adolescents with low and high resistance to peer influence. Social Neuroscience, 3(3–4), 303–316.
Robertson, S. (2008). Age of consent laws in children and youth in history, Item #230. Retrieved January 14, 2013, from http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/230
Rubia, K., Overmeyer, S., et al. (2000). Functional frontalisation with age: Mapping neurodevelopmental trajectories with fMRI. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 24(1), 13–19.
Siever, L. J. (2008). Neurobiology of aggression and violence. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 165(4), 429–442.
Somerville, L. H., Jones, R. M., et al. (2010). A time of change: Behavioral and neural correlates of adolescent sensitivity to appetitive and aversive environmental cues. Brain and Cognition, 72(1), 124–133.
Sowell, E. R., Thompson, P. M., et al. (1999). In vivo evidence for post-adolescent brain maturation in frontal and striatal regions. Nature Neuroscience, 2(10), 859–861.
Sowell, E. R., Thompson, P. M., et al. (2001). Mapping continued brain growth and gray matter density reduction in dorsal frontal cortex: Inverse relationships during postadolescent brain maturation. The Journal of Neuroscience, 21(22), 8819–8829.
Sowell, E. R., Petersen, B. S., et al. (2003). Mapping cortical change across the human life span. Nature Neuroscience, 6(3), 309–315.
Spear, L. P. (2000). The adolescent brain and age-related behavioral manifestations. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 24(4), 417–463.
Steinberg, L. (2005). Cognitive and affective development in adolescence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(2), 69–74.
Steinberg, L. (2007). Risk-taking in adolescence: New perspectives from brain and behavioral science. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 55–59.
Steinberg, L. (2009). Adolescent development and juvenile justice. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 5(1), 459–485.
Steinberg, L., & Scott, E. S. (2003). Less guilty by reason of adolescence: Developmental immaturity, diminished responsibility, and the juvenile death penalty. American Psychologist, 58(12), 1009–1018.
Steinberg, L., Cauffman, E., et al. (2009). Are adolescents less mature than adults?: Minors’ access to abortion, the juvenile death penalty, and the alleged APA “flip-flop”. The American Psychologist, 64(7), 583–594.
Thomas, N., & O’Kane, C. (1998). The ethics of participatory research with children. Children & Society, 12(5), 336–348.
United States Supreme Court. (1990). Hodgson vs. Minnesota, 497, US 417.
United States Supreme Court. (2005). Roper vs. Simmons, US Supreme Court.
United States Supreme Court. (2010). Graham vs. Florida, US Supreme Court.
United States Supreme Court. (2012). Miller vs. Alabama, 567.
Wahlstrom, D., White, T., & Luciana, M. (2010). Neurobehavioral evidence for changes in dopamine system activity during adolescence. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 34(5), 631–648.
Weisberg, D. S., Keil, F. C., et al. (2008). The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(3), 470–477.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Johnson, S.B., Giedd, J.N. (2015). Normal Brain Development and Child/Adolescent Policy. In: Clausen, J., Levy, N. (eds) Handbook of Neuroethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_148
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_148
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-4706-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-4707-4
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law