BRAIN, MIND AND BEHAVIOR SOME MEDICOLEGAL ASPECTS

The advent of new imaging techniques is broadening our understanding o f the major psychiatric illnesses. The increased knowledge of brain fu nction will have consequences for the expert medical witness who has t o give evidence in court. Both the insanity defence and the defence of automatism depend on disorders of the mind. Psychiatry is now able in many cases to produce evidence that these are consequent upon disorde rs of the brain. In presenting evidence in court there is an apparent conflict between 'brain words' and 'mind words'.