Dana Foundation Awards Grant In Support of Innovative Partnership in Law & Neuroscience 

The University of Minnesota Law School, in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience based at Vanderbilt Law School, and the Center for Law, Brain & Behavior at Mass General Hospital, has been awarded a new grant from the Dana Foundation to support the curation and dissemination of research and legal cases at the intersection of law and neuroscience.

Attorneys and legal scholars are increasingly recognizing the implications of advances in neuroscience for doctrine and practice in areas such juvenile and emerging adult justice, criminal sentencing, brain injury litigation, elder justice, evidence law, disability law, and much more. 

With this new support from the Dana Foundation, more professors and practitioners will be able to stay updated on these developments through three complementary streams: the Law and Neuroscience Bibliography, founded and hosted by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience; the Neurolaw News, an email newsletter, providing critical updates in the bibliography, events, opportunities, and also curated by the Research Network; and a new Case Updates series disseminated by the MGH Center for Law, Brain & Behavior. 

Providing leadership for this unique partnership are Professors Francis X. Shen and Owen D. Jones. co-authors, along with Vanderbilt neuroscientist Jeffrey Schall, of Law and Neuroscience (2nd ed., 2020), Shen and Jones are among the nation’s leading authorities on neurolaw. 

At Vanderbilt, Professor Jones is the Glenn M. Weaver, M.D. and Mary Ellen Weaver Chair in Law, Brain, and Behavior; Professor of Law; Professor of Biological Sciences; and director, MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience.

Professor Shen is a law professor and faculty member in the Graduate Program on Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota, where he directs the Shen Neurolaw Lab. He is also the Executive Director of the MGH Center for Law, Brain & Behavior, Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School, Senior Fellow in Law & Applied Neuroscience at the Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School, and Executive Director of Education & Outreach for the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience.

“We are very grateful to the Dana Foundation for this support,” said Professor Shen. “There are many exciting developments happening in the field of law and neuroscience, but few outlets regularly reporting on them. This partnership will allow us to sustain the great work of the Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, while expanding coverage of case developments through the Center on Law, Brain, and Behavior. This is an exciting, innovative partnership.”