Using fMRI to detect a lie

A new study presented yesterday at the Radiological Society of North America yesterday showed differences in brain patterns when people are lying vs. when they’re telling the truth. It’s a small study (just 9 subjects) and it’s not clear that fMRI would be any more reliable than a polygraph, but it’s an indication of what’s down the road…

Changes were detected in the frontal, temporal and limbic lobes — it’s not clear to me how many of those changes might be detectable by the near-infrared spectral imaging I blogged about earlier, but if possible that might address some of the cost issues associated with fMRI…

Press release, Reuters story