The Weaver Distinguished Lecture series provides our community with foundational information at the intersection of law and neuroscience. The Weaver Family Program in Law, Brain Sciences, and Behavior sponsors interdisciplinary faculty research and projects that explore law and human behavior across a broad spectrum of life science and social science fields. Each year, the Weaver Distinguished Lecture Series organizes and hosts symposia and speakers featuring leading researchers working in law, brain sciences, and human behavior.
In this conversation, Harvard Medical School's Professor Judith Edersheim will discuss the ways in which certain pseudoscientific neuroscience concepts have been wrongly applied to the study of law and the manner in which these assumptions can be corrected through further study and advocacy. Dr. Edersheim is the founding co-director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain and Behavior, where she is an attending psychiatrist.
Francis X. Shen delivered the 2025 Weaver Lecture Titled “How Neuroscience Can Revolutionize the Criminal Law,” the talk explored the intersection of neuroscience and the legal system, emphasizing the potential and current limitations of neuroscience in shaping criminal law. Shen is a distinguished professor of law and neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, where he directs the Shen Neural Law Laboratory.
Nationally renowned neuroscientist BJ Casey, The Christina L. Williams Professor of Neuroscience at Barnard College - Columbia University, delivered the second annual Weaver Distinguished Lecture in Law, Brain Sciences, and Behavior. Casey’s lecture titled “Explorations in Law and Neuroscience: The Adolescent Brain," highlighted unique vulnerabilities along with tremendous opportunities for growth and change in adolescents, clarify the current state of the science on typical behavioral and brain development during adolescence; and demonstrate that traits are dynamic and show continued change beyond adolescence.
The inaugural lecture featured Anthony Wagner, the Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences at Stanford University, and deputy director of the Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. The lecture was titled "Explorations in Law and Neuroscience: Memory States in the Brain." Wagner’s talk centered on the use of functional MRI brain scans to test true and false memories. After detailing his research methodology, he discussed the implications of his findings for criminal convictions based primarily on eyewitness testimony.