Brain-Scanning Lie Detectors May Be Used In Court Soon

Lie and your brain will send more blood to the ventrolateral area of your prefrontal cortex. fMRI scans can tell when this happens by measuring blood-oxygen levels in the brain. Soon such brain-scanning lie detectors may be used in courts.

fMRI scans aren’t exactly perfect when it comes to showing when someone is lying – in some small studies the accuracy has ranged from 76 per cent to over 90 per cent – but a Brooklyn attorney, David Levin, is fighting to use them in a case anyway. Levin thinks that the scans will be sufficient to determine whether a woman’s employer really was treating her unfairly after she complained about sexual harassment.

If used to break the “he-said/she-said stalemate” of this case, fMRI scans would most likely wind up being used in other cases as well, so this case could be setting a rather significant precedent. [Wired]

Image by EUSKALANATO