Violent behaviors during sleep may result in events which have forensic science implications. The apparent suicide (for example, leap to death from a second-storey window), assault or murder (for example, molestation, strangulation, stabbing, shooting) may be the unintentional, non-culpable but catastrophic result of disorders of arousal, sleep-related seizures, REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), or psychogenic dissociative states. Violent sleep-related behaviors have been reviewed in the context of automatic behavior in general, with many well-documented cases resulting from a wide variety of disorders. Conditions associated with sleep-period-related violence fall into two major categories: neurologic and psychiatric. Psychogenic dissociative disorders may arise exclusively or predominantly from the sleep period. Recent interest in the forensic aspects of parasomnias provides sleep medicine professionals with an opportunity to educate and assist the legal profession in cases of sleep-related violence. One infrequently used tactic to improve scientific testimony is to use a court-appointed impartial expert.

The application of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) techniques to the study of neuropsychiatric disorders in childhood provides an extraordinary opportunity to advance the understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these disorders. All MR methods (MRS, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional MRI, (fMRI)) rely on the same basic principles. MRS offers several advantages over radionuclide neuroimaging techniques (positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)) for the study of children and adolescents, in particular its absence of ionizing radiation. The chapter considers evidence for abnormal concentrations of various metabolites detected with MRS in the brains of children with psychiatric disorders. MRS employs standard MRI devices to make measurements of chemical levels within the brain. MRS findings in children with acute or chronic neurologic insults are important because they may clarify the significance of biochemical changes identified in children with psychiatric diagnoses.