Glimcher explains that some researchers are able to tell if a subject is lying based on brain scans, but it isn’t as simple as Huizenga makes it seem. Paul Glimcher, a New York University neuroscientist, agrees with Hsiao’s assessment. Hsiao thinks that fMRI data is useful in certain cases, like creativity studies or potentially mapping out mental disorders, but he cautions that too many researchers could draw untenable conclusions from these scans. “The more complex those aspects of perception and cognition, the more difficult it is to isolate them.” “We don’t understand how the brain processes a lot of things,” says Steven Hsiao, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University. For example, polygraphs - the lie detectors of choice since 1924 - perform with about 60 percent accuracy.Īlthough No Lie MRI’s results may seem compelling, some scientists think that the data are not quite so convincing. If Huizenga’s machines are able to detect lying with 90 to 99 percent accuracy, as he claims, then fMRI is far more accurate than any lie detection method currently on the market. He authored a number of papers on the subject and has a master’s degree in molecular biology from State University of New York, Stony Brook, but he has not published papers specifically about fMRI lie detection.

Huizenga began his career using MRIs to detect plaque accumulation patterns that could lead to heart disease.

“If this technology was accepted, people would have to stop telling lies.” Joel Huizenga, the CEO of No Lie MRI - a company specializing in fMRI lie detection - believes that his scanners could change the face of lie detection in the United States and around the world. By using a brain scanning system known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) - a way of measuring brain cell activity by tracking blood flow - they are claiming to be able to “see” when a person lies. Now some researchers are becoming a bit more ambitious.

The most popular lie detection methods have centered on measuring heart rate, perspiration and general anxiety. Whether it’s about big issues or little ones, lying seems to be an ingrained aspect of human psychology.įor decades, scientists have been investigating exactly what the body does when a person tells a lie.

Human brain mapping sci journal