Scientist: MRIs Can Serve As Lie Detectors

AP ^ | Tue Sep 27, 2005 | Anon AP Stringer

[Pharmboy]

A scientist at the Medical University of South Carolina has found that magnetic resonance imaging machines also can serve as lie detectors.

The study found MRI machines, which are used to take images of the brain, are more than 90 percent accurate at detecting deception, said Dr. Mark George, a distinguished professor of psychiatry, radiology and neurosciences.

That compares with polygraphs that range from 80 percent to "no better than chance" at finding the truth, George said.

His results are to be published this week in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

Software expected to be on the market next year could make it easier to tell if someone is a liar, which has implications for law enforcement.

Researchers at MUSC conducted the study using 60 healthy men. They offered some extra money if they could manage to trick the machine but none could.

"We had some of our study group try to dupe us, and they were unable," George said.

The MRI images show that more blood flows to parts of the brain associated with anxiety and impulse control when people lie. More blood also flows to the part of the brain handling multitasking because it is hard for people to keep track of lies they have told.

In the study, researchers had participants commit a mock theft. Then questions about the theft were projected onto a screen while they were inside the MRI machine. Participants pressed a button to respond to the yes or no questions.

The test won't work if people don't remain still in the MRI machine so a clear imagine of the brain can be recorded. And some people's brains don't seem to show the same changes while lying.

It's also not clear whether certain psychiatric conditions might change the test results.

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[Pharmboy]

X42 could beat this technique since he would feel no anxiety as a sociopath.

[Pharmboy]

Thought-you-might-be-interested Ping...(notice how I cleverly put cy and Petro right next to each other).

[lunarbicep]

ping

[Petronski]

(notice how I cleverly put cy and Petro right next to each other).

I noticed...believe me. ;O)

[Pharmboy]

MUSC is an EXCELLENT medical center...

[Stirner]

I recall reading about some earlier, similar research. Using MRI, they were able to measure subjects responses to information. Without being even asked specific questions, merely hearing a word or a name mentioned evoked a brain response that most subjects could not suppress. Pretty close to mind reading.

[Leo Carpathian]

Klintoon would mess up this machine real good! Can we have the reality show with him and Hitlery on FOX? Put really loud bells on it!
Also way to find out if RATs really believe the crap they are spewing or they lie intentionally. This would be worth some gubmit money well spent (to get to the waaay bottom of it).
Hello Dan Rather?!? Fat Teddy?!?
Oh, and send one to Gitmo Club right now!!!

[Pharmboy]

Also way to find out if RATs really believe the crap they are spewing or they lie intentionally.

Now THAT'S an interesting point...

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks. I think AntiGuv has started up a ping list for this stuff.

[AntiGuv]

This is somewhat on the periphery of what I would ordinarily ping (in particular because the concept isn't new, and the MRI will almost certainly not be a practical application of it) but I live to serve! :)

FutureTechPing!

An emergent technologies list covering biomedical research, fusion power, nanotech, AI robotics, and other related fields. FReepmail to join or drop.

[AntiGuv]

Then again, the list is still evolving, and who really knows what this might spur??

[newzjunkey]

We can eliminate those with a plate in their heads too. Oops!

[aculeus]

Thought-you-might-be-interested Ping.

Yes. Thanks.

[andyk]

Jack Wheeler wrote an article that was published in the Washington Times, on March 5, 2003, titled "Interrogating KSM", which suggested similar techniques for obtaining information from terrorists. It's too old to obtain from the Washington Times site (I don't have a membership for their archives), but I found a cached version on Google.

With the capture of top al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (known as "KSM"), getting him to disgorge the contents of his brain quickly and truthfully is critically necessary before his network has a chance to vanish undercover.

What, then, would the most efficient and effective form of interrogation be? In 1995, the Philippine State Police captured an al Qaeda agent. They knew he was planning some terrorist act, but didn't know what. So they tortured him — the old-fashioned way, right out of the movies with putting out cigarettes on his testicles, breaking his ribs, the whole brutal nine yards. It took two weeks and finally he broke, revealing a plot to hijack 11 airliners. By exposing and unraveling the plot, the torture saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives, so it was clearly justified.

The ethics of torturing KSM should not be an issue. As a practical matter, the question is: How to torture him in such a way that it takes hours, not days or weeks, for him to break; and when he does, you know for sure he is telling the truth.

To start, you don't want to use a so-called truth serum like thiopental sodium. It acts by confusing your memory so much you forget who is your friend and who is your enemy. So you think the interrogator is your friend and you talk — except you can't think or remember clearly. No, you want KSM to be thinking and remembering with crystal clarity.

The best lie detector — although it's not used as such — would be a medical brain-scanning device called a functional MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). Light years in effectiveness beyond a polygraph, an fMRI scan can distinguish — instantly, in real time — when someone is lying as opposed to telling the truth, as different regions in the brain would light up.

So here's what to do.

Fly in from the United States and set up an fMRI at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, where KSM is being held, and do three things: Place KSM under the fMRI brain scanner; put him on a mechanical respirator; and give him an injection of a paralytic drug called succinyl choline chloride (SCC). SCC, used as a veterinarian anesthetic, causes muscle paralysis by blocking neuromuscular junction. It causes immobilization without affecting the central nervous system, such that KSM cannot move, yet he is fully conscious and there is no analgesia (pain relief). Injection by an M.D. anesthesiologist of SCC into the nerve tracts leading to the diaphragm will paralyze the muscles needed for breathing. KSM can think, remember, and talk, but he cannot breathe. The mechanical respirator breathes for him. Without the respirator, he would quickly suffocate and die.

The respirator is a CPAP, a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure unit used for treating sleep apnea, with a nasal mask. The unit itself is placed in an adjacent room with a long hose, as no metal can be around the huge magnets of the fMRI. The unit will force air via the nasal passageway into the lungs. His mouth is free and clear to talk.

Now the interrogation begins. KSM is asked a series of questions to which the answers are known (e.g., Are you a Muslim? Would you like a drink of pig grease?). If he lies, the respirator is turned off. Few experiences are more terrifying than that of suffocation. After a sufficiently terrifying period of suffocation, the respirator is turned back on, the question is asked again, and the process repeated until he tells the truth. Once you have the regions in KSM's brain clearly distinguished that light up when he is lying or telling the truth, the serious questioning starts. It will not take long, an hour or two at the most, before KSM is singing like a full chorus of canaries. After all useful information has been extracted from his brain, KSM should be informed that he will now be killed after his body is smeared with pig fat, that his dead body will be handled by women, and all other actions taken that prevent a Muslim from entering heaven upon death so that he dies believing he will never get the heavenly wine and virgins, but will burn in Hell instead. Upon his execution, there should be no physical remains. The body should be cremated and the ashes scattered to the winds.

Then, the word can be spread. All members of al Qaeda must know that once captured, their terrorist brethren will betray their comrades and that their fate will be ashes and Hell. The only way to win the war against terrorism is to terrorize the terrorists into giving up their evil jihad.

I get all misty when I read this!

[Pharmboy]

Very interesting. Only one problem: the long tube from the next room carrying air to KSM would kill him. When the tube is that long, the amount of dead space is too large to be replaced by oxygen and he would suffocate anyway.

[andyk]

the amount of dead space is too large to be replaced by oxygen

Wouldn't they fill the dead space with O2 before beginning? I was assuming there's a cutoff at the mask, not in the other room. Seems like you could easily have someone next to the terrorists, clamping and unclamping the O2 line.

[Redcloak]

I misread the title at first glance. It's just as well. Using MREs to extract information from people would violate the Geneva Convention.

[Pharmboy]

You would need a special valve to get rif of the CO2...if it's not metal, it could work.

[SC Swamp Fox]

South Carolina Ping

Add me to the ping list. Remove me from the ping list.

[thulldud]

Using MREs to extract information from people would violate the Geneva Convention.

Hey, I've got an MRE in my house! You think I could use it to get information out of people? (Since I'm not in an actual "war", Geneva doesn't apply.)