Two companies prepare to rollout lie-detection MRI scanners

Ever since Cain told God that he did not know where Abel was — “am I my brother’s keeper?” he famously asked — humans have been lying to the authorities; and, like Cain, many have been punished for doing so. Of course, God is a lie-detector all to himself, while kings and judges have had to rely on less divine techniques, from the ordeals of the Middle Ages to the lie detector machine of the modern age. These latter techniques, however, have never approached the level of reliability reached by the former. Never, that is, until now.

Two companies are now offering functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans that may be the best lie detectors ever invented. Lies and truths look different in the brain, scientists say, and these differences can be detected. The idea, says San Diego-based No Lie MRI, is to bypass conscious cognitive processing and measure the activity of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) rather than the peripheral nervous system (as polygraph testing does). Another company, Pepperell Massachusetts-based Cephos, offers a similar technology.

Once fully operational, No Lie MRI intends to charge approximetly $900 for a half-hour session with the machine. Subjects are rolled into the MRI tube in the same manner as with any other MRI scan, but instead of lying quietly they are asked a series of true and untrue statements prompted by images in a screen above their head. A person suspected of lying about their educational career might be shown an image of the supposed Harvard PhD, for instance. As with polygraphs, technicians measure from baseline truths — the subjects name, birthdate, etc. — to detect deviations. “The truth is always simpler,” says one xpert. “To make a lie you have to know what is true, and you have to distort it. That is the extra work that goes into lying.”

Neither Cephos nor No Lie MRI have won any government contracts yet, in large part because the technology is so immature that results from it could not be introduced as evidence in court (nor can polygraphs, for that matter.) Both companies, however, see a short term market in family discord. Most of those that have approached No Lie MRI have been those seeking to prove their own innocence in sexual matters, not establish the guilt of another. “We’ve never advertised or marketed, but people keep calling — from Australia, Spain, Italy, other parts of the world,” says Joel T. Huizenga of No Lie MRI.

-read more in Joel Garreau’s Washington Post report; company Web sites: No Lie MRI | Cephos