Brain Fingerprinting and Lie Detection: A Study of Dynamic Functional Connectivity Patterns of Deception Using EEG Phase Synchrony Analysis

Effective connectivity in cortical networks during deception: A lie detection study using EEG

Previous studies have identified activated regions associated with deceptive tasks and most of them utilized time, frequency, or temporal features to identify deceptive responses. However, when deception behaviors occur, the functional connectivity pattern and the communication between different brain areas remain largely unclear. In this study, we explored the most important information flows between different brain cortices during deception. First, we employed the guilty knowledge test protocol and recorded on 64 electrodes electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from 30 subjects (15 guilty and 15 innocent). EEG source estimation was then performed to compute the cortical activities on the 24 regions of interest (ROIs). Next, effective connectivity was calculated by partial directed coherence (PDC) analysis applied to the cortical signals. Furthermore, based on the graph-theoretical analysis, the network parameters with significant differences were extracted as features to identify two groups of subjects. In addition, the ROIs frequently involved in the above network parameters were selected, and based on the difference in the group mean of PDC values of all the edges connected with the selected ROIs, we presented the strongest information flows (MIIF) in the guilty group relative to the innocent group. Experimental results first show that the optimal classification features are mainly in-degree and out-degree measures of the ROI and the high classification accuracy for four bands demonstrated that the proposed method is suitable for lie detection. In addition, the frontoparietal network was found to be most prominent among all the MIIFs in four bands. Finally, combining the neurophysiology signification of four frequency bands, respectively, we analyzed the roles of all the important information flows to uncover the underlying cognitive processes and mechanisms used in deception.