Keeping Up with Neurolaw: What to Know and Where to Look

It is hard to know exactly what the future holds for law and neuroscience. But it is a fair bet that the future will look different, perhaps markedly so, than the neurolaw of today. How can one keep up with this change? In this brief essay, I provide a series of resources for those interested in expanding their knowledge of fundamental law and neuroscience issues, as well as keeping up to date on cutting-edge innovations.

A useful starting point for orienting to neurolaw is Bill Gates’s observation on technological change, “People often overestimate what will happen in the next two years and underestimate what will happen in ten.”1 Gates suggests the importance of both a short-term and long-term view. In the short-term, it seems unlikely that legislators, advocates, or judges will produce a paradigm shift in law, or that any single neuroscience discovery will be game changing. In the longterm, however, the possibilities (as discussed by the many commentaries in this issue) are numerous and potent. The informed consumer and producer of neurolaw should be sensitive to both of these time horizons.