Brain-based lie detection

Sujeeta Bhatt and colleagues recently scanned 18 participants using fMRI and compared their brain activity across 3 conditions:

1). when the participants pointed out truthfully which face they'd seen earlier in a line of 3 faces
2). when they lied and pointed to a new face rather than the one they'd seen earlier
3). when all the faces were new but the participants lied and pretended to have seen one of them before

Bhatt et al. found that when people were lying their dorso- and ventro- lateral prefrontal cortices, the superior frontal gyri, the anterior cingulate gyrus, as well as the precuneu in the parietal lobe showed increased activity.

Awesome!