Tonight is the premiere of PBS’ Brains on Trial

By Princess Ojiaku on September 11, 2013

If you are interested in the intersection of neuroscience and the law, tune into your local PBS station tonight at 10 pm (Eastern time, check local listings) to see the first episode in a new two-part series, Brains on Trial. The first episode takes us to the real-life New York Southern District courtroom of Judge Jed S. Rakoff, who is presiding over a case of a young man charged with robbery and murder. Throughout the case, host Alan Alda takes us to meet with various neuroscientists and scholars who explain different ways in which advances in neuroscience might apply to future criminal cases.

Brains on Trial is a great introduction to thinking about how the law and neuroscience can intersect. In fact, I think I might start linking people to this program when they inevitably ask me how someone can combine Neuroscience and Public Policy in a graduate program. I've been fortunate to see two of scholars featured in the program, Judge Jed Rakoff and Duke University law professor Nita Farahany, present at my graduate program's seminar series.

The first episode, "Determining Guilt," airs tonight and deals with lie detection, racial bias, and eyewitness reconstruction. The second episode of the series, "Deciding Punishment" airs on September 18th.

Image from Brains on Trial courtesy of Michael J Lutch/PBS.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Princess Ojiaku

Hey there! I'm a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin Madison in the Neuroscience and Public Policy program. I'm also a musician who played in two bands in North Carolina, one called Pink Flag and another called Deals. My personal passions are science, music, and cycling as transportation.

I got into science as a kid while tagging along and watching my mom do experiments in her lab. I found that while I loved science, I didn't want to be alone in an ivory tower, crunching data that few others would understand. I also noticed that many other people thought science was this scary and incomprehensible entity of obscurity. When I realized that there were people working to make science fun and accessible to everyone, I knew that this was exactly what I wanted to do. The two things I find the most immensely interesting and continually impressing are music and neuroscience, so these are the topics that I'll focus on in my blog. Philosophy and politics are my second loves, so I might pop in an occasional post on these topics as well. Ultimately I am here to share things that give me wonder. I hope that reading Science with Moxie gives you a bit of that wonder too.