Neuroscience is slowly discovering the neural bases of PTSD and other psychiatric ailments and is building tests to distinguish actual patients from non-suffering individuals. The authors examine the current state of neuroscientific research on PTSD and its biomarkers, focusing on a recent experiment by Apostolos Georgopoulos and coworkers. Then legal consequences of these scientific advances are analyzed, both in civil and criminal law, from a comparative perspective. Neuro-technology is likely to provide courts with a new kind of evidence, which will not replace but add to older behavioral evidence.
Bottalico, B., & Tommaso B., (2012). Post traumatic stress disorder, neuroscience, and the law. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 35, 112–120.
doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2011.12.001
