Surfing brain waves: fMRI for lie detection

The long view of security strategies for your network.

One of the critical steps in incident response is the interview. In previous articles in this column ("Poly want a hacker?", "Drawing the Lines" and "Blurred Lines") I've looked briefly at the use of polygraph as a tool for identifying lies. Today, I will look at another technology for telling truth from fiction: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

I have a personal interest in fMRI because my wife, Dr D. N. Black, MDCM, FRCP(C), a neuropsychologist for 25 years, has turned me into what we describe as “that most useless of hobbyists, an amateur neurologist.” She often describes patient symptoms and asks me to come up with a diagnosis – a bizarre but enjoyable version of 20 questions. Sometimes I’m even right. I’ve actually had the privilege of serving as her statistician in some of her papers, but my favorite is our 1987 letter in the Canadian Medical Association Journal about a new sleep disorder.

fMRI is yet another development in the evolving study of brain function. Martha J. Farah and Paul Root Wolpe have an excellent overview of these technologies in their article, “Monitoring and Manipulating Brain Function: New Neuroscience Technologies and Their Ethical Implications” from the Hastings Center Report (May-June 2004) pp 35-45. Using strong external magnetic fields, fMRI systems measure blood flow – and thus the level of neuronal activity – with a resolution of a millimeter or less and a response time of about 1 second.

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One of the critical steps in incident response is the interview. In previous articles in this column ("Poly want a hacker?", "Drawing the Lines" and "Blurred Lines") I've looked briefly at the use of polygraph as a tool for identifying lies. Today, I will look at another technology for telling truth from fiction: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

I have a personal interest in fMRI because my wife, Dr D. N. Black, MDCM, FRCP(C), a neuropsychologist for 25 years, has turned me into what we describe as “that most useless of hobbyists, an amateur neurologist.” She often describes patient symptoms and asks me to come up with a diagnosis – a bizarre but enjoyable version of 20 questions. Sometimes I’m even right. I’ve actually had the privilege of serving as her statistician in some of her papers, but my favorite is our 1987 letter in the Canadian Medical Association Journal about a new sleep disorder.

fMRI is yet another development in the evolving study of brain function. Martha J. Farah and Paul Root Wolpe have an excellent overview of these technologies in their article, “Monitoring and Manipulating Brain Function: New Neuroscience Technologies and Their Ethical Implications” from the Hastings Center Report (May-June 2004) pp 35-45. Using strong external magnetic fields, fMRI systems measure blood flow – and thus the level of neuronal activity – with a resolution of a millimeter or less and a response time of about 1 second.

One interesting application of fMRI has been to identify patterns of brain activity associated with truthful statements compared with lies, as Kozel et al. reported in 2004 (Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 16(3):295-305). Early results were inconclusive: “Specific brain regions were activated during deception, but the present technique lacks good predictive power for individuals.”

Reporting on later research by Faro et al., reporter Beth W. Orenstein wrote in an article entitled, “Guilty? Investigating fMRI’s Future as a Lie Detector” (Radiology Today 6(10):30) that “The fMRI study found that when the subjects were telling lies, more areas of their brains activated than when they were being truthful.” She quoted Dr Scott Faro, MD, professor and vice chair of Radiology at Philadelphia’s famous Temple University School of Medicine: “Indeed, what we found was that approximately twice as many areas of the brain - 14 vs. seven - are activated when one is lying as compared to when one is telling the truth.”

In Steve Silberman’s 2006 article in Wired Magazine, “Don’t Even Think About Lying”, the author describes his experiences being scanned and discusses some of the growing controversy about the ethical implications of equipment that scans brain activity in the service of the state:

"So what began as a neurological inquiry into why kids with ADHD blurt out embarrassing truths may end up forcing the legal system to define more clearly the inviolable boundaries of the self."

“My concern is precisely with the civil and commercial uses of fMRI lie detection,” says ethicist Wolpe. “When this technology is available on the market, it will be in places like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib in a heartbeat.

M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP-ISSMP, specializes in security and operations management consulting services and teaching. He is Chief Technical Officer of Adaptive Cyber Security Instruments, Inc. and Associate Professor of Information Assurance in the School of Business and Management at Norwich University. Visit his Web site for white papers and course materials.