Liars beware: A brain scan could tell truth

[Courtesy Kosha Ruparel and James Loughead ] A brain scan image depicts the average brain activation in professor Daniel Langleben's modified guilty-knowledge test. Gray areas represent areas more active in 'truth,' while black regions are leaning toward

Would-be criminals may find life difficult in the future, as a group of Penn researchers have developed an advanced method of detecting lies -- by scanning brains.

The group, lead by Psychiatry professor Daniel Langleben, has used functional magnetic resonance imaging technology to detect increases or decreases in brain activity.

The researchers started by surveying a group of 25 male subjects -- including several Penn students and faculty.

"We wanted to determine the difference in brain activity associated with lying and telling the truth," Langleben said. "We found a clear increase in brain work in the prefrontal cortex associated with lying."

Following this initial research, a second round of tests confirmed that the fMRI scan could detect a lie by a single subject in a specific session.

"Not only were our findings conclusive, but since we started, they have been replicated by two other independent groups in Michigan and North Carolina," Langleben said. "This suggests that we indeed have valid and feasible results."

However, he added that the fMRI research would have to undergo years of more rigorous testing before it could have applications outside of academic circles. In particular, it remains to be seen how well the scan will be able to detect lies if the subject deliberately tries to hide them.

"It can be hypothesized that the fMRI will be more stable than a polygraph in the presence of counter measures, but we would need to do a head-to-head comparison in field conditions," Langleben said. "All it needs is more validation and testing."

If the project receives necessary funding, Langleben feels that it will definitely have useful applications in the commercial sphere within five to 10 years, in the fields of criminology and psychotherapy in particular.

However, School of Social Policy and Practice professor Laura McCloskey -- part of the Graduate Group in Criminology -- feels that the application of the fMRI technology to criminology will be limited, even if the technology proves to be more reliable than a polygraph lie-detector test.

"There will always be a certain error. There's no test that you can administer that will be 100 percent effective," she said. "I think that this level of error will basically be a barrier to the use of fMRI data in the court."

She also had reservations about the ethics of using such an invasive method to extract information from people against their will.

"My concern would be that this sort of technology could be misapplied to people that don't enjoy equal legal protection," she said.

College senior Michael Benz disagrees. He feels that the fMRI technology should definitely be utilized once it is further developed.

"I am very much in support of it being used. I think it is completely ethical," he said. "Any sort of biological source for detecting lies is going to be more reliable than any subjective one."

He added that with further testing, the technology would also have useful applications to criminology.

"I would recommend it at least as a preliminary basis," he said. "I don't think it will be conclusive in itself, but I would use it in conjunction with other evidence."

Comments (3)

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As a practicing psychiatrist I am a bit alarmed about this technology that is being developed by my colleagues at Penn, NOT because it might be imperfect but precisely because it might, in fact, be effective. None of the people interviewed in the article have apparently considered the ultimate implications of having a nearly foolproof system of lie detection. In particular, I worry about functional MRI scanning being used to determine the thoughts and beliefs of politically and socially unpopular groups of people. Obviously, this is most likely in societies that don't have a history of commitment to individual rights and liberties, under which the vast majority of human beings live. Even in modern western societies, however, the desire to maintain security may lead to compromises in the protections traditionally offered to citizens. Our "war on terrorism" has already produced new laws and practices that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago. While we all can appreciate a technology that might reliably discern between a person who actually committed a robbery or rape and an innocent person merely accused of having done so, we must be aware that there are also potential nefarious uses of such technology. The history of the human race in using technology for questionable purposes does not suggest to me that we can be sanguine about this new "miracle" lie detector. In addition, there are other reasons to be concerned. Consider that our inner thoughts are the one aspect of life that has always been truly private. Our ability to maintain this absolute domain of privacy has been a large part of what it means to have an individual identity. I submit that the loss of ability to have that one realm of true "privacy" has the capacity to change the very nature of what it means to be human. All one has to do is to read the works of holocaust survivors such as Victor Frankel (also a psychiatrist) to realize that I'm not exaggerating here. Dr. Frankel made it very clear that although the Nazis could hurt, mutilate, and invade his body, the fact that they couldn't penetrate his mind was the one thing that kept him going during his captivity. I don't think we can blindly support such technology without thinking through its ultimate implications, many of which, I would submit, will be unintended. Victor Patin, MD, Physician Connecticut addmd@prodigy.net

This lie detector of great degree of certainty, can be use to check the assent to sexuals relations or not, of a human young person , without fear to be to force by criminals to say yes, if they want to say not, nor forced criminally by the society, the Government, its law and its police force, to intervene for their statement of saying not when they want to say yes. The choice of its loves concerns only the individuals themselves that have to be free in that intimate zone. Only the Individuals concerned, know and feel if the desire emerges in them for such others or not. It comes within the juridiction of the Individual right and importance paramount to respect this Divine Naturalness function of Direction of Oneself by Pleasure-Love God in Oneself and particularly in the choice of its sexuals loves Ones. Andre Giguere, psychanalyste Montreal

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