What was Michael Brown thinking?

Jurors pondered that nearly 12 years ago before deciding on the guilty verdict that would lock the teen away for decades in an adult prison. They questioned why a 16-year-old boy with no previous history of violence did nothing to stop his teen pals from stabbing his screaming grandparents in 1994 unless he was the cold and calculating killer prosecutors said he was.

But if the trial took place now or years from now, would science have played a greater role in their deliberating?

Would Brown have been saved from the adult sanctions because of his teenage brain?

Advances in brain research suggest it's possible.

Scientists are now seeing beyond the skull into an emerging debate over whether the differences between the brain of an adolescent and an adult should have different implications for each in the criminal justice system.

Studies being conducted at institutions such as the Laboratory for Adolescent Science at Dartmouth College and the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., could someday lead to the development of tools to aid in determining juvenile offenders' degree of culpability as compared with adults.

That could mean future Michael Browns will have an additional argument for receiving juvenile sanctions, not adult sentences, in cases of kids who kill.

"We are interested in the broader question of whether juveniles should be punished to the same extent as adults who have committed comparable crimes," said psychologist Laurence Steinberg in his 2003 article, "Less Guilty by Reason of Adolescence."

Take a "CSI" look into the teenage brain and you'll notice a firestorm of activity. But experts say it's where that activity is taking place - and where it isn't - that makes the crucial difference.

The gray matter chatter in a teen brain is in full swing deep within the temporal lobe in an almond-shaped bulge called the amygdala, the brain's emotional center.

In adults, the amygdala's emotional and often impulsive or erratic reactions such as anger, fear and recklessness are tempered by the reasoning and social awareness of the brain's frontal lobe.

Cerebral construction is not complete until around ages 20 to 25, most scientists agree. The frontal lobe is one of the last areas of the brain to develop.

In the adolescent brain, it's barely firing at all.

Without the frontal lobe on board, it becomes physiologically harder for a teen to completely understand the future consequences of his or her emotional or impulsive actions, scientists contend.

"Thus, there is good reason to believe that adolescents, as compared with adults, are more susceptible to influence, less future-oriented, less risk averse and less able to manage their impulses and behavior," Steinberg said.

He and others advocate that such a discrepancy in brain function should be taken into consideration when deciding to seek juvenile or adult sanctions.

Childhood abuse and neglect further hampers normal brain development, researchers say. A recent study by the Juvenile Justice Center of the American Bar Association found that a majority of juveniles on death rows across the country had been abused or neglected as children.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision last year now prohibits sentencing a juvenile to death, a decision that took into consideration the incomplete brain development in juveniles. Court observers say that decision could have striking implications in cases where adult sanctions are being sought for juvenile offenders.

No one is saying, however, that an immature brain is an excuse for committing crime - nor does it exonerate a juvenile from the consequences of breaking the law.

It "does not excuse violent criminal behavior, but it's an important factor for courts to consider," according to a statement from the American Psychiatric Association.

Chief Bernalillo County Deputy District Attorney Todd Heisey warns that brain science cannot predict which teen can be rehabilitated and which is a budding psychopath.

"I think it's too soon to simply rely on that sort of technology," he said. "Some kids are just violent; some kids can get better once they face their consequences. The trick is to know which is which."

Presiding Children's Court Judge Marie Baca said she is beginning to see more discussion of the juvenile brain in her Albuquerque courtroom.

"It's a controversial area," said Baca. "It's hard to go from this tough-love position where we hold juveniles accountable for their actions, including murder. But it's important, I think, to realize that children don't behave like little adults."

State District Judge Louis McDonald, who sentenced Brown and his two teen co-defendants as adults, said the brain-science debate has yet to enter his courtroom, located in Bernalillo.

Still, he said he tries to keep up with current research on the issue.

"The difficult thing about sentencing kids is everything I've seen about teenagers is that their brains are not complete," he said. "There is so much going on in there. They act impulsively. Sometimes they do things they've never even reflected on."

McDonald said he doubts Brown and the other two, Bernadette Setser and Jeremy Rose, know to this day why they did what they did on a February night nearly 13 years ago when they took two lives and tossed away their own.

"They don't understand what they were thinking," he said.

Brain research suggests that the question they should be asking is not what they were thinking but how they were thinking.