Up and Coming

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No More Lies: fMRI Interrogation

By Michael Vishnevetsky

The intelligence obtained from the interrogations of suspected terrorists can save lives. Yet skilled liars who manipulate unreliable equipment often make lie detection more of an art than a science. Traditional techniques depend on instinctual physical responses to lying, but to improve the accuracy of their work, interrogators anticipate an entirely new instrument of lie detection. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) discovers deception by scanning the brain itself.

Developed over thirty years ago, MRI exploits the magnetic properties of hydrogen atoms to create two-dimensional maps of the brain. When pulsed with a radio frequency, the atoms become excited and resonate. Induction of a magnetic fi eld forces them to slowly align and release energy. A scanner then detects this energy and converts it into an image of the brain. The recent development of fMRI technology enhances those images by distinguishing levels of neural activity.

Lying activates specifi c regions of the brain, including the hippocampus, temporal lobe, and prefrontal cortex. When telling a lie, these areas require increased amounts of oxygenrich blood. Hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen through the blood, exhibits distinct magnetic properties in its oxygenated and deoxygenated forms. fMRI interprets these differences and reveals increased activity in different parts of the brain at any given moment.