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Neuroscience And Juvenile Justice, Jay D. Aronson

Akron Law Review

Recent advances in the field of neuroscience, especially improved magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques, are providing scientists and decision-makers with an increasingly complex understanding of how our brains develop from birth to adulthood. While these studies are still in their infancy, they have already made it clear that the brain typically continues to develop long after the point at which an individual becomes a legal adult (i.e., at age 18), and that the slow maturation process that plays out in the social context is mirrored by a slow maturation process at the neural level. Despite the tentative nature and unsettled …