Criminal Justice, Executive Functioning & Neuro-INFLAMMATION

This Diagram shows the COMPLICATED nature of NEURO-INFLAMMATION

"Neuroinflammation: the devil is in the details" 
Journal of Neurochemistry (2016)

CONJECTURE

​Three things are becoming more apparent:
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• ​​*The Criminal Justice Population has differences / deficits in Executive Functioning;

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• Executive Functioning Differences/Deficits are linked to INFLAMMATION.

• INFLAMMATION is linked to numerous sources in psychiatric disorders, most notably MATERNAL IMMUNE ACTIVATION and TRAUMA.
  • ​A Mountain State like Colorado has a higher suicide rate because ALTITUDE is piling on INFLAMMATION for people who likely already have a lot of INFLAMMATION--- but ALTITUDE is not necessarily the major source of INFLAMMATION

High Altitude, Sky High Suicide Rates

​Much of our focus as a society has been on youth and people with "IQs" below 70 who found themselves subject to the Death Penalty.

More recently, we've been concerned about people with "MENTAL ILLNESS" in the JUSTICE SYSTEM.

As far as "PSYCHOTIC ILLNESS" --- which is definitely on our streets and in the CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM --- it is often a PROGRESSION of NEURO / IMMUNE DYSREGULATION that started out as DEVELOPMENTAL INFLAMMATION.

Many of the men and women in the CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM are not currently psychotic (some are), BUT most are NEURO-DIVERSE with significant DEVELOPMENTAL INFLAMMATION, EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING CHALLENGES and often ABILITY that is very hard to exercise when the price of admission is TRADITIONAL EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING.

Maternal immune activation and neuroinflammation in human neurodevelopmental disorders --- Aug. 2021

Inflammation Disrupts the Brain Network of Executive Function After Cardiac Surgery

Brain changes in a maternal immune activation model of neurodevelopmental brain disorders --- 2019

Increasing Role of Maternal Immune Activation in Neurodevelopmental Disorders --- 2018