Julia F. Christensen ^1* Caroline Rödiger ² Lisa Claydon ³ Patrick Haggard ^4,5

• ¹ Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Max Planck Society, Frankfurt, Germany
• ² Department of Law, Faculty of Law and Economics, University of Bonn, Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
• ³ The Open University Law School, Milton Keynes, England, United Kingdom
• ⁴ Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London, London, England, United Kingdom
• ⁵ Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, London, United Kingdom

The law assumes that healthy adults are generally responsible for their actions and have the ability to control their behaviour based on rational and moral principles. This contrasts with some recent neuroscientific accounts of action control. Nevertheless, both law and neuroscience acknowledge that strong emotions including fear and anger may "trigger" loss of normal voluntary control over action. Thus, "Loss of Control" is a partial defence for murder under English law, paralleling similar defences in other legal systems.Here we consider the neuroscientific evidence for such legal classifications of responsibility, particularly focussing on how emotional states modulate voluntary motor control and sense of agency. First, we investigate whether neuroscience could contribute an evidence-base for law in this area. Second, we consider the societal impact of some areas where legal thinking regarding responsibility for action diverges from neuroscientific evidence: should we be guided by normative legal traditions, or by modern understanding of brain functions? In addressing these objectives, we propose a translation exercise between neuroscientific and legal terms, which may assist future interdisciplinary research.