Neuroscience-based Psychiatric Assessments of Criminal Responsibility: Beyond Self-Report?

Many legal systems have an insanity defense, which means that although a person has committed a crime, she is not held criminally responsible for the act. A challenge with regard to these assessments is that forensic psychiatrists have to rely to a considerable extent on the defendant's self-report. Could neuroscience be a way to make these evaluations more objective? The current value of neuroimaging in insanity assessments will be examined. The author argues that neuroscience can be valuable for diagnosing neurological illnesses, rather than psychiatric disorders. Next, he discusses to what extent neurotechnological 'mind reading' techniques, if they would become available in the future, could be useful to get beyond self-report in forensic psychiatry.