Effect of prefrontal transcranial magnetic stimulation on spontaneous truth-telling

Effects of Online Single Pulse Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation on Prefrontal and Parietal Cortices in Deceptive Processing: A Preliminary Study

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to test the functional role of parietal and prefrontal cortical regions activated during a playing card Guilty Knowledge Task (GKT). Single-pulse TMS was applied to 15 healthy volunteers at each of three target sites: left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and midline parietal cortex. TMS pulses were applied at each of five latencies (from 0 to 480 ms) after the onset of a card stimulus. TMS applied to the parietal cortex exerted a latency-specific increase in inverse efficiency score and in reaction time when subjects were instructed to lie relative to when asked to respond with the truth, and this effect was specific to when TMS was applied at 240 ms after stimulus onset. No effects of TMS were detected at left or right DLPFC sites. This manipulation with TMS of performance in a deception task appears to support a critical role for the parietal cortex in intentional false responding, particularly in stimulus selection processes needed to execute a deceptive response in the context of a GKT. However, this interpretation is only preliminary, as further experiments are needed to compare performance within and outside of a deceptive context to clarify the effects of deceptive intent.

The Role of Reward System in Dishonest Behavior: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study

Previous studies showed that the cortical reward system plays an important role in deceptive behavior. However, how the reward system activates during the whole course of dishonest behavior and how it affects dishonest decisions remain unclear. The current study investigated these questions. One hundred and two participants were included in the final analysis. They completed two tasks: monetary incentive delay (MID) task and an honesty task. The MID task served as the localizer task and the honesty task was used to measure participants' deceptive behaviors. Participants' spontaneous responses in the honesty task were categorized into three conditions: Correct-Truth condition (tell the truth after guessing correctly), Incorrect-Truth condition (tell the truth after guessing incorrectly), and Incorrect-Lie condition (tell lies after guessing incorrectly). To reduce contamination from neighboring functional regions as well as to increase sensitivity to small effects (Powell et al., Devel Sci 21:e12595, 2018), we adopted the individual functional channel of interest (fCOI) approach to analyze the data. Specially, we identified the channels of interest in the MID task in individual participants and then applied them to the honesty task. The result suggested that the reward system showed different activation patterns during different phases: In the pre-decision phase, the reward system was activated with the winning of the reward. During the decision and feedback phase, the reward system was activated when people made the decisions to be dishonest and when they evaluated the outcome of their decisions. Furthermore, the result showed that neural activity of the reward system toward the outcome of their decision was related to subsequent dishonest behaviors. Thus, the present study confirmed the important role of the reward system in deception. These results can also shed light on how one could use neuroimaging techniques to perform lie-detection.

I lie, why don't you: Neural mechanisms of individual differences in self-serving lying

People tend to lie in varying degrees. To advance our understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms of this heterogeneity, we investigated individual differences in self-serving lying. We performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in 37 participants and introduced a color-reporting game where lying about the color would in general lead to higher monetary payoffs but would also be punished if get caught. At the behavioral level, individuals lied to different extents. Besides, individuals who are more dishonest showed shorter lying response time, whereas no significant correlation was found between truth-telling response time and the degree of dishonesty. At the neural level, the left caudate, ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) were key regions reflecting individual differences in making dishonest decisions. The dishonesty associated activity in these regions decreased with increased dishonesty. Subsequent generalized psychophysiological interaction analyses showed that individual differences in self-serving lying were associated with the functional connectivity among the caudate, vmPFC, IFG, and dlPFC. More importantly, regardless of the decision types, the neural patterns of the left caudate and vmPFC during the decision-making phase could be used to predict individual degrees of dishonesty. The present study demonstrated that lying decisions differ substantially from person to person in the functional connectivity and neural activation patterns which can be used to predict individual degrees of dishonesty.

Stop in the name of lies: The cost of blocking the truth to deceive

Most researchers assume that deception involves a conflict between a predominant truth response and a deliberate deceptive response. Such a view is consistent with dual process theories that state that high-order cognition operates through fast-automatic processes that may conflict with slow-deliberate ones. In the present study, we tested whether one must inhibit the truth to deceive in light of inconsistent findings in the literature. One hundred and eighty-nine participants were tested across two Negative Priming paradigms that rest on the logic that the activation of a fast-automatic process will be hampered on a given display if it is inhibited on the previous display. Our findings suggest that truthful responses are predominant in healthy adults, which is why inhibitory control is required to activate a deliberate deceptive mode. We argue that the findings from deception studies could be best accounted for by dual process theories.

The guilty brain: the utility of neuroimaging and neurostimulation studies in forensic field

Several studies have aimed to address the natural inability of humankind to detect deception and accurately discriminate lying from truth in the legal context. To date, it has been well established that telling a lie is a complex mental activity. During deception, many functions of higher cognition are involved: the decision to lie, withholding the truth, fabricating the lie, monitoring whether the receiver believes the lie, and, if necessary, adjusting the fabricated story and maintaining a consistent lie. In the previous 15 years, increasing interest in the neuroscience of deception has resulted in new possibilities to investigate and interfere with the ability to lie directly from the brain. Cognitive psychology, as well as neuroimaging and neurostimulation studies, are increasing the possibility that neuroscience will be useful for lie detection. This paper discusses the scientific validity of the literature on neuroimaging and neurostimulation regarding lie detection to understand whether scientific findings in this field have a role in the forensic setting. We considered how lie detection technology may contribute to addressing the detection of deception in the courtroom and discussed the conditions and limits in which these techniques reliably distinguish whether an individual is lying.

Deceptive but Not Honest Manipulative Actions Are Associated with Increased Interaction between Middle and Inferior Frontal gyri

The prefrontal cortex is believed to be responsible for execution of deceptive behavior and its involvement is associated with greater cognitive efforts. It is also generally assumed that deception is associated with the inhibition of default honest actions. However, the precise neurophysiological mechanisms underlying this process remain largely unknown. The present study was aimed to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to reveal the underlying functional integration within the prefrontal cortex during the task which requires that subjects to deliberately mislead an opponent through the sequential execution of deceptive and honest claims. To address this issue, we performed psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis, which allows for statistical assessment of changes in functional relationships between active brain areas in changing psychological contexts. As a result the whole brain PPI-analysis established that both manipulative honest and deceptive claiming were associated with an increase in connectivity between the left middle frontal gyrus and right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ). Taking into account the role played by rTPJ in processes associated with the theory of mind the revealed data can reflect possible influence of socio-cognitive context on the process of selecting manipulative claiming regardless their honest or deceptive nature. Direct comparison between deceptive and honest claims revealed pattern enhancement of coupling between the left middle frontal gyrus and the left inferior frontal gyrus. This finding provided evidence that the execution of deception relies to a greater extent on higher-order hierarchically-organized brain mechanisms of executive control required to select between two competing deceptive or honest task sets.

The good lies: Altruistic goals modulate processing of deception in the anterior insula

When it comes to lies, the beneficiaries of one's dishonesty play an important role in the decision-making process. Altruistic lies that are made with the intention of benefiting others are a specific type of lies and very common in real life. While it has been shown that altruistic goals influence (dis)honest behaviors, the neural substrates of this effect is still unknown. To reveal how the brain integrates altruistic goals into (dis)honest decisions, this study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural activity of participants in a real incentivized context while they were making (dis)honest decisions. We manipulated the beneficiaries of individuals' decisions (self vs. a charity) and whether the choices of higher payoffs involved deception or not. While finding that participants lied more often to benefit charities than for themselves, we observed that the altruistic goal of benefiting a charity, compared with the self-serving goal, reduced the activity in the anterior insula (AI) when lying to achieve higher payoffs. Furthermore, the degree of altruistic goal-induced reduction of AI activity was positively correlated with the degree of altruistic goal-induced reduction of honesty concerns. These results suggest that the AI serves as a neural hub in modulating the effect of altruistic goals on deception, which shed light on the underlying neural mechanism of altruistic lies. Hum Brain Mapp 38:3675-3690, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Disrupting dorsolateral prefrontal cortex by rTMS reduces the P300 based marker of deception

OBJECTIVE

Quite many studies have revealed certain brain-process signatures indicative of subject's deceptive behavior. These signatures are neural correlates of deception. However, much less is known about whether these signatures can be modified by noninvasive brain stimulation techniques representing methods of causal intervention of brain processes and the corresponding behavior. Our purpose was to explore whether such methods have an effect on these signatures.

METHODS

It is well known that electroencephalographic event-related potential component, P300, is sensitive to perception of critical items in a concealed information test, one of the central methods in deception studies. We examined whether the relative level of expression of P300 as a neural marker of deception can be manipulated by means of noninvasive neuromodulation. We used EEG/ERP recording combined with (i) neuronavigated repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and (ii) concealed information detection test. An opportunistically recruited volunteer group of normal adults formed our experimental group.

RESULTS

We show that offline rTMS to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex attenuated relative P300 amplitude in response to the critical items compared to the neutral items.

CONCLUSION

Noninvasive prefrontal cortex excitability disruption by rTMS can be used to manipulate the sensitivity of ERP signatures of deception to critical items in a concealment-based variant of lie detection test.

A Possible Role of Prolonged Whirling Episodes on Structural Plasticity of the Cortical Networks and Altered Vertigo Perception: The Cortex of Sufi Whirling Dervishes

Although minutes of a spinning episode may induce vertigo in the healthy human, as a result of a possible perceptional plasticity, Sufi Whirling Dervishes (SWDs) can spin continuously for an hour without a vertigo perception.This unique long term vestibular system stimulation presents a potential human model to clarify the cortical networks underlying the resistance against vertigo. This study, therefore, aimed to investigate the potential structural cortical plasticity in SWDs. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 10 SWDs and 10 controls were obtained, using a 3T scanner. Cortical thickness in the whole cortex was calculated. Results demonstrated significantly thinner cortical areas for SWD subjects compared with the control group in the hubs of the default mode network (DMN), as well as in the motion perception and discrimination areas including the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), the right lingual gyrus and the left visual area 5 (V5)/middle temporal (MT) and the left fusiform gyrus. In conclusion, this is the first report that warrants the potential relationship of the motion/body perception related cortical networks and the prolonged term of whirling ability without vertigo or dizziness.

Memory Interventions in the Criminal Justice System: Some Practical Ethical Considerations

In recent years, discussion around memory modification interventions has gained attention. However, discussion around the use of memory interventions in the criminal justice system has been mostly absent. In this paper we start by highlighting the importance memory has for human well-being and personal identity, as well as its role within the criminal forensic setting; in particular, for claiming and accepting legal responsibility, for moral learning, and for retribution. We provide examples of memory interventions that are currently available for medical purposes, but that in the future could be used in the forensic setting to modify criminal offenders' memories. In this section we contrast the cases of (1) dampening and (2) enhancing memories of criminal offenders. We then present from a pragmatic approach some pressing ethical issues associated with these types of memory interventions. The paper ends up highlighting how these pragmatic considerations can help establish ethically justified criteria regarding the possibility of interventions aimed at modifying criminal offenders' memories.

Decoding the processing of lying using functional connectivity MRI

Background

Previous functional MRI (fMRI) studies have demonstrated group differences in brain activity between deceptive and honest responses. The functional connectivity network related to lie-telling remains largely uncharacterized.

Methods

In this study, we designed a lie-telling experiment that emphasized strategy devising. Thirty-two subjects underwent fMRI while responding to questions in a truthful, inverse, or deceitful manner. For each subject, whole-brain functional connectivity networks were constructed from correlations among brain regions for the lie-telling and truth-telling conditions. Then, a multivariate pattern analysis approach was used to distinguish lie-telling from truth-telling based on the functional connectivity networks.

Results

The classification results demonstrated that lie-telling could be differentiated from truth-telling with an accuracy of 82.81% (85.94% for lie-telling, 79.69% for truth-telling). The connectivities related to the fronto-parietal networks, cerebellum and cingulo-opercular networks are most discriminating, implying crucial roles for these three networks in the processing of deception.

Conclusions

The current study may shed new light on the neural pattern of deception from a functional integration viewpoint.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12993-014-0046-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The role of expectations, hype and ethics in neuroimaging and neuromodulation futures

The production of expectations or future-goals for the development of techniques which “read” and modulate brain function, represent an important practical tool for neuroscientists. These visions-of-the-future assist scientists by providing focus for both individual and cross-disciplinary research programs; they encourage the development of new industrial sectors, are used to justify the allocation of government resources and funding, and via the media can help capture the imagination and support of the public. However, such expectations need to be tempered by reality. Over-hyping brain imaging and modulation will lead to disappointment; disappointment that in turn can undermine its potential. Similarly, if neuroscientists focus their attention narrowly on the science without concomitant consideration of its future ethical, legal and social implications, then their expectations may remain unrealized. To develop these arguments herein we introduce the theoretical concept of expectations and the practical consequences of expectations. We contextualize these reflections by referring to brain imaging and modulation studies on deception, which encompass the measurement-suppression-augmentation range.

Deception rate in a "lying game": different effects of excitatory repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of right and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex not found with inhibitory stimulation

Knowing the brain processes involved in lying is the key point in today's deception detection studies. We have previously found that stimulating the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) affects the rate of spontaneous lying in simple behavioural tasks. The main idea of this study was to examine the role of rTMS applied to the DLPFC in the behavioural conditions where subjects were better motivated to lie compared to our earlier studies and where all possible conditions (inhibition of left and right DLPFC with 1-Hz and sham; excitation of left and right DLPFC with 10-Hz and sham) were administered to the same subjects. It was expected that excitation of the left DLPFC with rTMS decreases and excitation of the right DLPFC increases the rate of lying and that inhibitory stimulation reverses the effects. As was expected, excitation of the left DLPFC decreased lying compared to excitation of the right DLPFC, but contrary to the expectation, inhibition had no different effects. These findings suggest that propensity to lie can be manipulated by non-invasive excitatory brain stimulation by TMS targeted at DLPFC and the direction of the effect depends on the cortical target locus.

Facilitating the right but not left DLPFC by TMS decreases truthfulness of object-naming responses

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) participates in many mental functions involving cognitive control. This also applies to processes underlying deception. Recently it was shown that, compared to the opposite effect found with left-hemisphere 1-Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of the DLPFC, right-hemisphere stimulation decreased the propensity to produce untruthful responses in a subsequent task where subjects had freedom to name presented stimulus-objects either veridically or nonveridically. In a similar experiment, the purpose of the present study was to test whether changing the rTMS protocol from the disrupting to facilitatory type can lead to opposite results. When trains of 10-Hz pulses were delivered to the right DLPFC, propensity to lie increased while similar left-hemisphere DLPFC stimulation did not change the rate of untruthful responses. We can conclude that the way how right DLPFC and other areas functionally associated with it are involved in producing truthful or deliberately deceptive statements about perceived objects considerably depends on what are the parameters of stimulation by which functionality of this system is manipulated.

Non-invasive brain stimulation can induce paradoxical facilitation. Are these neuroenhancements transferable and meaningful to security services?

For ages, we have been looking for ways to enhance our physical and cognitive capacities in order to augment our security. One potential way to enhance our capacities may be to externally stimulate the brain. Methods of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS), such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), have been recently developed to modulate brain activity. Both techniques are relatively safe and can transiently modify motor and cognitive functions outlasting the stimulation period. The purpose of this paper is to review data suggesting that NIBS can enhance motor and cognitive performance in healthy volunteers. We frame these findings in the context of whether they may serve security purposes. Specifically, we review studies reporting that NIBS induces paradoxical facilitation in motor (precision, speed, strength, acceleration endurance, and execution of daily motor task) and cognitive functions (attention, impulsive behavior, risk-taking, working memory, planning, and deceptive capacities). Although transferability and meaningfulness of these NIBS-induced paradoxical facilitations into real-life situations are not clear yet, NIBS may contribute at improving training of motor and cognitive functions relevant for military, civil, and forensic security services. This is an enthusiastic perspective that also calls for fair and open debates on the ethics of using NIBS in healthy individuals to enhance normal functions.

A functional MRI study of deception among offenders with antisocial personality disorders

Deceit is a core feature of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), and the study of deception in ASPD has important implications for identifying the underlying mechanism of ASPD. A great deal of functional neuroimaging literature has described the neural correlates of deception in healthy volunteers, but there have been few imaging studies examining people with ASPD. The neural correlates of lie-telling in ASPD, and which specific brain activities are related to the capacity to lie, are unclear. In this study, 32 offenders who satisfied the Personality Diagnostic Questionaire-4 and PDI-IV (Personality Disorder Interview) criteria for ASPD were divided into three groups based on their capacity for deception, which was evaluated based on the deceitfulness criterion of the PDI-IV ASPD. All offenders underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while responding to questions in a truthful, inverse, or deceitful manner. We primarily created contrasts in the brain activities between truth-telling and lie-telling, and then computed the Pearson's correlation coefficients between activities contrasts of individual, i.e. BOLD (blood-oxygen-level-dependent) strength during deception minus that during truth-telling, and the capacity for deception. Our results indicated that the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex extending to the middle frontal gyrus, the left inferior parietal lobule, and the bilateral anterior cingulate gyrus/medial superior frontal gyrus were associated with deception among people with ASPD. As the capacity for deception increased, the contrasted brain activities of the above regions decreased. This study found that truthful and untruthful communications of ASPD subjects can be differentiated in terms of brain BOLD activities, and more importantly, this study is the first to use fMRI to discover that BOLD activities during deception are correlated with the capacity to lie. The latter finding might challenge the diagnostic accuracy of lie detection and may also caution that greater attention should be given to detecting untruths in individuals who are skilled at lying.

Does the inferior frontal sulcus play a functional role in deception? A neuronavigated theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation study

By definition, lying involves withholding the truth. Response inhibition may therefore be the cognitive function at the heart of deception. Neuroimaging research has shown that the same brain region that is activated during response inhibition tasks, namely the inferior frontal region, is also activated during deception paradigms. This led to the hypothesis that the inferior frontal region is the neural substrate critically involved in withholding the truth. In the present study, we critically examine the functional necessity of the inferior frontal region in withholding the truth during deception. We experimentally manipulated the neural activity level in right inferior frontal sulcus (IFS) by means of neuronavigated continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS). Individual structural magnetic resonance brain images (MRI) were used to allow precise stimulation in each participant. Twenty-six participants answered autobiographical questions truthfully or deceptively before and after sham and real cTBS. Deception was reliably associated with more errors, longer and more variable response times than truth telling. Despite the potential role of IFS in deception as suggested by neuroimaging data, the cTBS-induced disruption of right IFS did not affect response times or error rates, when compared to sham stimulation. The present findings do not support the hypothesis that the right IFS is critically involved in deception.

Magnetic flimmers: 'light in the electromagnetic darkness'

Transcranial magnetic stimulation has become an important field for both research in neuroscience and for therapy since Barker in 1985 showed that it was possible to stimulate the human motor cortex with an electromagnet. Today for instance, transcranial magnetic stimulation can be used to measure nerve conduction velocities and to create virtual lesions in the brain. The latter option creates the possibility to inactivate parts of the brain temporarily without permanent damage. In 2008, the American Food and Drugs Administration approved repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation as a therapy for major depression under strict conditions. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation has not yet been cleared for treatment of other diseases, including schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, obesity and Parkinson's disease, but results seem promising. Transcranial magnetic stimulation, however, was not invented at the end of the 20th century. The discovery of electromagnetism, the enthusiasm for electricity and electrotherapy, and the interest in Beard's concept of neurasthenia already resulted in the first electromagnetic treatments in the late 19th and early 20th century. In this article, we provide a history of electromagnetic stimulation circa 1900. From the data, we conclude that Mesmer's late 18th century ideas of 'animal magnetism' and the 19th century absence of physiological proof had a negative influence on the acceptance of this therapy during the first decades of the 20th century. Electromagnetism disappeared from neurological textbooks in the early 20th century to recur at the end of that century.

Lying and executive control: an experimental investigation using ego depletion and goal neglect

This study investigated whether lying requires executive control using a reaction-time based lie test. We hypothesized that (1) goal neglect induced by a long response-stimulus interval (RSI; 5-8s) would make lying harder relative to a short RSI (.2 s) that promoted attentional focus, and (2) participants whose executive control resources were depleted by an initial executive control task would experience more difficulty to lie than control participants who performed a task that required little executive control. Across two experiments, the ego depletion manipulation did not reliably affect lying. Both experiments revealed that the cognitive cost associated with lying was larger for the long compared to the short RSI. This finding supports the idea that lying requires more executive control than truth telling. The manipulation of RSI may provide a simple, yet effective means to improve lie detection accuracy.

Modulation of untruthful responses with non-invasive brain stimulation

Deceptive abilities have long been studied in relation to personality traits. More recently, studies explored the neural substrates associated with deceptive skills suggesting a critical role of the prefrontal cortex. Here we investigated whether non-invasive brain stimulation over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) could modulate generation of untruthful responses about subject's personal life across contexts (i.e., deceiving on guilt-free questions on daily activities; generating previously memorized lies about past experience; and producing spontaneous lies about past experience), as well as across modality responses (verbal and motor responses). Results reveal that real, but not sham, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the DLPFC can reduce response latency for untruthful over truthful answers across contexts and modality responses. Also, contexts of lies seem to incur a different hemispheric laterality. These findings add up to previous studies demonstrating that it is possible to modulate some processes involved in generation of untruthful answers by applying non-invasive brain stimulation over the DLPFC and extend these findings by showing a differential hemispheric contribution of DLPFCs according to contexts.