From http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/28/D8FE1U80C.html on 20060129

Brain Scans May Be Used As Lie Detectors
Jan 28 8:49 PM US/Eastern

By MALCOLM RITTER
AP Science Writer

CHARLESTON, S.C.

 Cephos Corp., which Laken founded to commercialize the brain-scanning work being done at the Medical University of South Carolina.

.......... Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have also reported impressive accuracy through brain-scanning recently. .............. lie-detecting services in Philadelphia this July.

His outfit, No Lie MRI Inc., will serve government agencies and "anybody that wants to demonstrate that they're telling the truth," he said.

Both labs use brain-scanning technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. It's a standard tool for studying the brain, but research into using it to detect lies is still in early stages. Nobody really knows yet whether it will prove more accurate than polygraphs, which measure things like blood pressure and breathing rate to look for emotional signals of lying.

But advocates for fMRI say it has the potential to be more accurate, because it zeros in on the source of lying, the brain, rather than using indirect measures. ............

Laken said he's aiming to offer the fMRI service for use in situations like libel, slander and fraud where it's one person's word against another, and perhaps in employee screening by government agencies. .................

Subjects have to cooperate so fully _ holding the head still, and reading and responding to the questions, for example _ that they have to agree to the scan.

......................

So maybe the technology is better termed a "truth confirmer" than lie detector, he said.

......... recently reported that using fMRI data, a computer was able to spot lies in 28 out of 31 volunteers.

I joined an extension of that study......... I found myself lying on a narrow table in George's lab while he and his assistants pulled a barrel-shaped framework over my head like a rigid hood. As it brushed the tip of my nose and blotted out the light from the room, I looked straight ahead to see a computer screen, which would be my interrogator.

Then the table eased into the tunnel of the fMRI scanner, a machine the size of a small storage shed. Only my legs stuck out.

As I focused on the questions popping up on the computer screen, the scanner roared like a tractor trying to uproot a tree stump.

It was bombarding me with radio waves and a powerful magnetic field to create detailed images of my brain and detect tiny changes in blood flow in certain areas. Those changes would indicate those areas were working a bit harder than usual, and according to research by George and others, that would in turn indicate I was lying.

move either a watch or a ring from a drawer and slip it into a locker with my briefcase. This was the mock crime that volunteers lied about in George's study. So I took the watch. As I lay in the scanner I remembered seizing its gold metal band and nestling it into the locker.

So, the computer was asking, did I take the watch?

No, I replied with a jab of my finger. I didn't steal nuthin.'

I lied again and again. Other questions about the watch popped up seemingly at random during the interrogation. Is the watch in my locker? Is it in the drawer? Did I steal it from the drawer?

The same questions came up about the ring, and I told the truth about those.

It would be a different computer's job to figure out which I was lying about, the watch or the ring. It would compare the way my brain acted when I responded to those questions versus what my brain did when I responded truthfully to the other questions. Whichever looked more different from the "truthful" brain activity would be considered the signature of deceit.

Finally, after answering 160 questions over the course of 16 minutes _ actually, it was 80 questions two times apiece _ I was done. The machine returned me to the bright light of the scanning room.

The computer's verdict? That would take a few days to produce, since it required a lot of data analysis. I didn't mind waiting. It's not like the result would help get me fired, or lose a lawsuit, or send me to jail.

............ the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute.

Other questions remain. How would this work on people with brain diseases? Or people taking medications? How would this work on people outside the 18-to-50 age range included in George's recent work?

How about experienced liars? George hopes eventually to study volunteers from prisons.

And then there's the matter of the three people who got away with lying in his recent study. For some reason, the computer failed to identify the object they'd stolen. George says he doesn't know what went wrong.

Judy Illes, director of Stanford's program in neuroethics, also has concerns: Could people, including victims of crimes, be coerced into taking an fMRI test? Could it distinguish accurate memories from muddled ones? Could it detect a person who's being misleading without actually lying?

Her worries multiply if fMRI evidence starts showing up in the courtroom. For one thing, unlike the technical data from a polygraph, it can be used to make brain images that look simple and convincing, belying the complexity of the data behind them, she said.

"You show a jury a picture with a nice red spot, ......juries ......... Will they be open to complex explanations of what the images do and do not mean?"

..........four Supreme Court justices wrote in 1998 that if polygraphs were reliable enough to use as evidence, they shouldn't be admitted because they would usurp the jury's role of determining the truth.................

"We nabbed ya," George said after sending me the results of my scan. "It wasn't a close call."

I was ratted out by the three parts of my brain the technique targets. They'd become more active when I lied about taking the watch than when I truthfully denied taking the ring.

Those areas are involved in

• juggling the demands of doing several things at once, in
  
• thinking about oneself, and in
  
• stopping oneself from making a natural response
  

_ all things the brain apparently does when it pulls back from blurting the truth and works up a whopper instead, George said.

___

On the Web:

Cephos Corp.: http://www.cephoscorp.com

No Lie MRI, Inc.: http://www.noliemri.com