Over the past several decades research in neuroscience, through the use of functional neuroimaging and other techniques, has sought to explain a vast array of human thought processes and behaviors, and the law has taken a keen interest in these studies. Neuroscience has offered tantalizing insights into human cognition and decision making. Criminal law has been the most frequently discussed area of the law to take an interest in and incorporate neuroscience research, most notably in matters related to juvenile sentencing. E.g. Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2464-65 (2012) (noting that neuroscience has demonstrated a fundamental difference between juvenile and adult brains and holding that mandatory life imprisonment without parole for persons under the age of eighteen was unconstitutional); Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005) (prohibiting the death penalty for older juveniles based, in part, on brain development studies).
