A replication study of the neural correlates of deception

The authors attempted to replicate prior group brain correlates of deception (F. Kozel et al., in press) and improve on the consistency of individual results. Healthy, right-handed adults were instructed to tell the truth or to lie while being imaged in a 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Blood oxygen level-dependent functional MRI significance maps were generated for subjects giving a deceptive answer minus a truthful answer (lie minus true) and the reverse (true minus lie). The lie minus true group analysis (n = 10) revealed significant activation in 5 regions, consistent with a previous study (right orbitofrontal, inferior frontal, middle frontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, and left middle frontal), with no significant activation for true minus lie. Individual results of the lie minus true condition were variable. Results show that functional MRI is a reasonable tool with which to study deception.