October 29, 2009

Detection of Deception with fMRI: Are we there yet?

This brief is written by Daniel D. Langleben, University of Pennsylvania. He writes that a decade of spectacular progress in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology and systems neuroscience research has so far yielded few changes in daily lives. The dearth of clinical applications of this research tool began raising the eyebrows of the public and the research funding agencies. This may be one of the reasons for the growing body of literature suggesting that blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI of the brain could be sensitive to the differences between lie and truth. The word "differences" is critical here since it refers to the often-ignored core concept of BOLD fMRI: it is only sensitive to differences between two brain states. This is an example of the extent to which applied neuroscience research does not lend itself to the type of over-simplification that has plagued the interpretation of fMRI-based lie detection. As an early contributor to the modest stream of data on fMRI-based lie detection, Langleben was asked to write about fMRI-based lie detection. In this brief, Langleben presented two hurdles: having to respond to the popular as well as scientific view of what lie detection with fMRI is and present a wholly positive view of evolving experimental data.