Genomics and Neuroscience in the Courtroom: An International Comparative Study

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26860344
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Medical sociology
• Research Institution: Tohoku University (2015-2016); Kyoto University (2014)
• Principal Investigator: Toda Soichiro 東北大学, 大学病院, 特任助教 (90619420)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 神経法学 / 機能的核磁気共鳴画像（fMRI） / 脳波（EEG） / 裁判員裁判

Outline of Final Research Achievements

A conceptual analysis on on whether neuroscientific findings by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or encephalography (EEG) influences the criminal responsibility or sentences of the defendant in question. In fact, a court of Italy decide to mitigate the sentences because of the deficit of a gene responsible for aggression. However, most of neuroscientific findings cannot be legal evidence.Rather, a possibilities that the juries can misunderstand these findings.
The legal system in Japan have launched the system of juries.Therefore,1) appropriate literacy of general public and 2) comprehension of the legal circle that determine the degree of credibility are a matter of great urgency. In this research, a preliminary investigation of extraction of the points of this big issues is conducted.

Free Research Field

生命倫理学、応用倫理学、脳神経倫理学