Support Long-term Thinking
Support Long-term Thinking

Brains, Lead, and the Law

by Austin Brown on July 15th, 02011





It’s clear from this article that there’s much to learn and maybe even more to do in changing our legal system and our understanding of justice, but Jonah Lehrer has a serendipitously-timed blog post that makes tangible the kinds of benefits we stand to gain:


He points out that one piece of the puzzle could be the banning of lead in paint by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Lead exposure damages the prefrontal cortex – a part of the brain associated with impulse control. So, it follows that once there were many fewer children experiencing loss of impulse control due to lead exposure, there would be many fewer impulsive people in our society likely to commit crimes in heated moments.

This remains a theory, but as an example of a positive outcome from policy-making based in an empirical understanding of the brain, we can only hope it’s the first of many.