Development and the Implications for Risk Assessment

1. Development and the Implications for Risk Assessment Kayla Pope, M.D., J.D. Unit on Affective Cognitive Neuroscience National Institute of Mental Health, NIH

2. Talk Overview Neuroscience in Supreme Court Decisions Research Techniques Developmental Findings in Healthy Children Atypical Development

3. Supreme Court Decisions • Roper v Simmons • Execution of a minor • Graham v Florida and Sullivan v Florida • Life without parole for juvenile offender (except murder)

4. Neuroscience in Court Decisions Evolving Standards of Decency Scientific evidence supporting differences between adolescents and adults

5. Neuroscience and Normal Development Structural MRI Functional MRI Behavioral Studies

6. Normal Developmental Differences Executive Function Emotional Reactivity and Behavioral Control

7. Executive Function Impulse control Following through Cognitive flexibility Working memory Attention

8. Emotional Reactivity and Behavioral Control Response to threat Interpreting facial expressions Understanding motives of self/others

9. Structural Development Myelination Synaptic connections Giedd et al, 2010; Giedd & Rapoport, 2010

10. Brain Development Age 4 to 22

11. Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) • Measure of strength of connection between regions • Significant change in connections involved in impulse control between ages of 7 and 19 • Liston et al, 2006 • Significant change in areas involved in information integration between ages 9 and 23 (maximal change 9 to 15) • Casey et al, 2007

12. Functional MRI • Changes in activity in a specific brain region • Key Findings: • More areas of the brain are recruited in tasks requiring voluntary control (less efficient) • Luna et al 2001; Scherf et al, 2006; Geier et al, 2009) • More difficulty following task rules and changing their strategy when there is new information • Bunge & Wallis, 2007; Bunge & Zelazo, 2006

13. Functional MRI • Emotion- • Adolescents 13 to 17 show exaggeration in area involved in flight, fight and desire (nucleus accumbens) Galvan et al, 2006; Hare et al, 2008 • Less able to process and recognize fearful faces (Leppanen & Nelson, 2009) • Recruit more areas of the brain in understanding the emotions and thoughts of others and self-reflection (Burnett & Blakemore, 2009; Burnett et al, 2009)

14. Behavioral Studies • Iowa Gambling Task- OFC functioning • Tower of London- test of executive function • Adolescents are less efficient in planning and less able to hold necessary information in working memory. Hooper et al, 2004; Luciana et al 2005 and 2009

15. Atypical Development • Disruptive Behaviors • ADHD- executive functioning • ODD/CD- emotional reactivity and decision making

16. Emotional Volatility amygdala dmFC hypothalamus PAG vmPFC Primed up basic threat system Poor control

17. Callous-unemotional traits The amygdala: stimulus-reinforcement learning OFC: Representation of reinforcement value and prediction error sensitivity

18. Conclusions Clear developmental differences between adolescents and adults Clear developmental differences between healthy and atypical children Implications for risk assessment