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Abstract

Tools for noninvasive stimulation of the brain, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), have provided new insights in the study of brain-behavior relationships due to their ability to directly alter cortical activity. In particular, TMS and tDCS have proven to be useful tools for establishing causal relationships between behavioral and brain imaging measures. As such, there has been interest in whether these tools may represent novel technologies for deception detection by altering a person's ability to engage brain networks involved in conscious deceit. Investigation of deceptive behavior using noninvasive brain stimulation is at an early stage. Here we review the existing literature on the application of noninvasive brain stimulation in the study of deception. Whether such approaches could be usefully applied to the detection of deception by altering a person's ability to engage brain networks involved in conscious deceit remains to be validated. Ethical and legal consequences of the development of such a technology are discussed.

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... Such behavior includes cognitive processes to generate intent and strategies of deception in a given context as well as executive processes to perform the chosen deceptive act (Luber et al. 2009). A useful, albeit still coarse, taxonomy distinguishes four categories of cognitive functions associated with deception: information management, risk management, impression management, and reputation management (Sip et al. 2007). ...
... And as to witnesses, as long as they can avail themselves of such simple ways of making the procedure entirely unreliable, forced-on fMRI is an inadmissible evidence merely for this reason alone, apart from questions of the legitimacy of such force. However, new methods may arise in the foreseeable future that, with a sufficient degree of reliability, foreclose or restrict subjects' ability to even form mendacious thoughts (see Luber et al. 2009). Such methods would perhaps be apt to even forcibly obtain truthful information from witnesses and would, of course, at the same time pose serious problems of justifiability. ...
... As long as they can evade the goal of the procedure by employing simple and effective countermeasures, its application is useless and thus inadmissible. 37 Scientific progress may, however, develop fMRI methods -perhaps, as the case may be, in conjunction with certain forms of brain stimulation (Luber et al 2009) -which are largely immune to such countermeasures. Then? ...
Article
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Methods of neuroimaging have sporadically, though in recent years increasingly, occurred in legal proceedings. By now, however, it seems that they are about to enter courtrooms on a systematic basis. This poses a host of normative problems, to do, for instance, with future applications of neuroimaging to determine culpability; to test the veracity of testimony, or predict the future dangerousness of perpetrators. The latter two: brain-based lie detection and "neuroprediction" of dangerousness are examined in this article. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is taken as a paradigm model, and its potential impacts on criminal trials are explored. The analysis is premised on a range of basic distinctions: between (1) different phases of a criminal trial; (2) the divergent roles played by the parties to a trial, most notably prosecution and counsel, and the different evidentiary goals and burdens associated with these roles; and (3) between compulsory and consensual fMRI. - It turns out that there are no good reasons to ban fMRI for lie detection or for neuroprediction from criminal proceedings entirely. Instead, it should be admitted differentially in criminal trials, viz., only for purposes of exoneration, but not of conviction, of the defendant. Substantiating arguments are expounded. In cases of preventive detention, it may even be obligatory for the state to offer chances of possibly exonerating brain imaging to perpetrators who were otherwise considered candidates for indefinite custody.
... Such behavior includes cognitive processes to generate intent and strategies of deception in a given context as well as executive processes to perform the chosen deceptive act (Luber et al. 2009). A useful, albeit still coarse, taxonomy distinguishes four categories of cognitive functions associated with deception: information management, risk management, impression management, and reputation management (Sip et al. 2007). ...
... And as to witnesses, as long as they can avail themselves of such simple ways of making the procedure entirely unreliable, forced-on fMRI is an inadmissible evidence merely for this reason alone, apart from questions of the legitimacy of such force. However, new methods may arise in the foreseeable future that, with a sufficient degree of reliability, foreclose or restrict subjects' ability to even form mendacious thoughts (see Luber et al. 2009). Such methods would perhaps be apt to even forcibly obtain truthful information from witnesses and would, of course, at the same time pose serious problems of justifiability. ...
... As long as they can evade the goal of the procedure by employing simple and effective countermeasures, its application is useless and thus inadmissible. 37 Scientific progress may, however, develop fMRI methods -perhaps, as the case may be, in conjunction with certain forms of brain stimulation (Luber et al 2009) -which are largely immune to such countermeasures. Then? ...
... Objections may invoke not only the technical difficulties of the scanning procedure or the intricate problems of developing effective test paradigms but also the complexity of the cognitive processes involved in the natural phenomenon to be investigated: human deceptive behavior. Such behavior includes cognitive processes to generate intent and strategies of deception in a given context as well as executive processes to perform the chosen deceptive act (Luber et al. 2009 ). A useful, albeit still coarse, taxonomy distinguishes four categories of cognitive functions associated with deception: information management, risk management, impression management, and reputation management (Sip et al. 2007). ...
... And as to witnesses, as long as they can avail themselves of such simple ways of making the procedure entirely unreliable, forced-on fMRI is an inadmissible evidence merely for this reason alone, apart from questions of the legitimacy of such force. However, new methods may arise in the foreseeable future that, with a sufficient degree of reliability, foreclose or restrict subjects' ability to even form mendacious thoughts (see Luber et al. 2009). Such methods would perhaps be apt to even forcibly obtain truthful information from witnesses and would, of course, at the same time pose serious problems of justifiability. ...
... As long as they can evade the goal of the procedure by employing simple and effective countermeasures , its application is useless and thus inadmissible. 37 Scientific progress may, however, develop fMRI methods – perhaps, as the case may be, in conjunction with certain forms of brain stimulation (Luber et al 2009) – which are largely immune to such countermeasures. Then? ...
Chapter
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... A somewhat different tradition of neurobiological research on deception combines brain imaging with non-invasive brain stimulation (for reviews see Rogasch andFitzgerald, 2013 or Shafi et al., 2012, for example). This approach is capable of examining causal effects and therefore increase methodological rigor of the studies of brain mechanisms of deception (Gamer et al., 2007;Priori et al., 2008;Karton and Bachmann, 2011;Karton et al., 2014aKarton et al., , 2014bLuber et al., 2009;Mameli et al., 2010). Despite this potential, there have been no studies examining the effects of brain stimulation on deception-related P300 ERP responses so far. ...
... Each block of the experimental task was associated with "off-line" rTMS in order to capitalize on earlier research showing suitability of this format in order to have an inhibitory effect on the cortical areas involved in deception (Hallett, 2007;Luber et al., 2009;Karton and Bachmann, 2011). "Off-line" protocol means that rTMS was not applied during the block of trials with stimuli presentation, but only before this block begun. ...
Preprint
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It is well known that electroencephalographic event related potential component P300 is sensitive to perception of critical items in a concealed information test. However, it is not known whether the relative level of expression of P300 as a neural marker of deception can be manipulated by means of non-invasive neuromodulation. Here, we show that while P300 exhibited systematic amplitude differences in response to the more as well as the less significant stimuli items encountered at the “crime scene” compared to neutral items, offline rTMS to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex attenuated P300 amplitude in response to the critical items. Yet, the individual subjects showed different sensitivity of the P300 as the marker of concealment. We conclude that rTMS can be used for subduing electrophysiological markers of deception, but this effect depends on whether the subject belongs to the group of CIT-sensitive individuals.
... However, although important work examining the neural bases of economic choice, social cognition, moral judgment, social cooperation, social punishment, and forced norm compliance exists [9,[11][12][13][14][15], the role of rLPFC in normative judgment in voluntary cooperation still remains unknown. Direct modulation of circumscribed brain areas by non-invasive electrical stimulation facilitates the assessment of such causal relations, such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) [9,16]. tDCS of the human motor cortex has been shown to induce shifts of cortical excitability during and after stimulation under the electrode [17][18][19][20][21]. ...
... Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) which can direct modulate activity of motor cortex is a non-invasive technique where a constant current is passed from one electrode (the anode) to the other (the cathode) over a period of time (usually 8-15 min) [9,16,26]. Civai et al. [27] found that anodal/cathodal tDCS increases/decreases cortical excitability. ...
Article
Normative judgment is a key capacity for human social norm compliance. Previous studies have revealed that the right lateral prefrontal cortex (rLPFC) is closely related to social norm compliance and that it has proven stimulation effects on behavior in voluntary and sanction-induced norm compliance, but not normative judgments. Nearly all these studies have been based on sanction-induced coordination cooperation, and a number of them have found that rLPFC has no effect on normative judgment with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). However, no research study exists regarding the effects of the normative judgment in voluntary cooperation. In this study, we used a linear asymmetric public good game to investigate the role of normative judgment in voluntary cooperation with tDCS on rLPFC. Participants were engaged in anonymous social interactions and made decisions with real financial consequences after being randomly assigned to receive either anodal, cathodal, or sham stimulation of 15min. Results suggest that compared with the sham group, anodal/cathodal tDCS influenced the behavior and normative judgment of participants in opposite directions. These outcomes provide a neural evidence for the rLPFC mechanism on normative judgment in voluntary cooperation.
... A somewhat different tradition of neurobiological research on deception combines brain imaging with noninvasive brain stimulation (reviews: Rogasch & Fitzgerald, 2013;Shafi, Westover, Fox, & Pascual-Leone, 2012). This approach allows examining causal effects and therefore increases methodological rigor of the studies of brain mechanisms of deception (Gamer, Bauermann, Stoeter, & Vossel, 2007;Karton & Bachmann, 2011;Karton, Palu, Jõks, & Bachmann, 2014;Karton, Rinne, & Bachmann, 2014;Luber, Fisher, Appelbaum, Ploesser, & Lisanby, 2009;Mameli et al., 2010;Priori et al., 2008). Despite this potential, the studies examining the effects of brain stimulation on deception-related P300 ERPs are difficult to find. ...
... Each block of the CIT-like experimental task was preceded by and associated with offline rTMS which is known as a suitable stimulation method in order to have an inhibitory effect on the cortical areas involved in deception (Hallett, 2007;Karton & Bachmann, 2011;Luber et al., 2009). In one group of subjects (n = 9), right DLPFC (rDLPFC) was stimulated either by sham stimulation or real rTMS; in the other group of subjects (n = 9), left DLPFC (lDLPFC) was stimulated. ...
Article
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Objective Quite many studies have revealed certain brain‐process signatures indicative of subject's deceptive behavior. These signatures are neural correlates of deception. However, much less is known about whether these signatures can be modified by noninvasive brain stimulation techniques representing methods of causal intervention of brain processes and the corresponding behavior. Our purpose was to explore whether such methods have an effect on these signatures. Methods It is well known that electroencephalographic event‐related potential component, P300, is sensitive to perception of critical items in a concealed information test, one of the central methods in deception studies. We examined whether the relative level of expression of P300 as a neural marker of deception can be manipulated by means of noninvasive neuromodulation. We used EEG/ERP recording combined with (i) neuronavigated repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and (ii) concealed information detection test. An opportunistically recruited volunteer group of normal adults formed our experimental group. Results We show that offline rTMS to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex attenuated relative P300 amplitude in response to the critical items compared to the neutral items. Conclusion Noninvasive prefrontal cortex excitability disruption by rTMS can be used to manipulate the sensitivity of ERP signatures of deception to critical items in a concealment‐based variant of lie detection test.
... Non-invasive neurostimulation techniques, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), have been used to assess the validity of brain imaging findings and attempt to establish a direct correlation between activity in a cortical region and deceptive behavior by transiently inhibiting cortical excitability (Luber et al., 2009). ...
... TMS with targeted magnetic fields that temporarily disrupt neural processing in a focal area may alter brain activity in a specific cortical region (Luber et al., 2009). Through the measurement of small but functionally important changes in behavior, this technique enables researchers to investigate functioning in a specific brain area in relation to an existing behavior. ...
Article
Several studies have aimed to address the natural inability of humankind to detect deception and accurately discriminate lying from truth in the legal context. To date, it has been well established that telling a lie is a complex mental activity. During deception, many functions of higher cognition are involved: the decision to lie, withholding the truth, fabricating the lie, monitoring whether the receiver believes the lie, and, if necessary, adjusting the fabricated story and maintaining a consistent lie. In the previous 15 years, increasing interest in the neuroscience of deception has resulted in new possibilities to investigate and interfere with the ability to lie directly from the brain. Cognitive psychology, as well as neuroimaging and neurostimulation studies, are increasing the possibility that neuroscience will be useful for lie detection. This paper discusses the scientific validity of the literature on neuroimaging and neurostimulation regarding lie detection to understand whether scientific findings in this field have a role in the forensic setting. We considered how lie detection technology may contribute to addressing the detection of deception in the courtroom and discussed the conditions and limits in which these techniques reliably distinguish whether an individual is lying.
... Even if in the future fMRI-based lie detection were to satisfy the guidelines outlined by the Daubert standard, judges could still deem it inadmissible if they determine that the probative value of the evidence is outweighed by its potential to confuse or mislead the jury. Additionally, critics have argued that it violates an individual's fourth amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure (Luber, Fisher, Appelbaum, Ploesser, & Lisanby, 2009;New, 2008) and fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination (Holloway, 2008;Luber et. al., 2009;New, 2008). ...
... value of the evidence is outweighed by its potential to confuse or mislead the jury. Additionally, critics have argued that it violates an individual's fourth amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure (Luber, Fisher, Appelbaum, Ploesser, & Lisanby, 2009;New, 2008) and fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination (Holloway, 2008;Luber et. al., 2009;New, 2008). ...
Article
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Episodic memory is prone to errors and distortions that can have important consequences for the law. This chapter considers research that has used functional neuroimaging techniques in an attempt to elucidate the nature and basis of true, false, and imaginary memories. The first section of the chapter discusses evidence showing that functional neuroimaging techniques can distinguish between true and false memories under controlled laboratory conditions. The second section focuses on a related and recently emerging line of work that compares the neural underpinnings of actual episodic memories of past experiences with imagined experiences (episodic simulation) of events that might occur in the future. The third and concluding section of the chapter discusses issues that arise when attempting to generalize results from the laboratory to everyday contexts, along with the possible implications of neuroimaging research on true, false, and imaginary memories for the legal system.
... In contrast, direct modulation of circumscribed brain areas by non-invasive electrical stimulation facilitates the assessment of such causal relations [19]. Direct modulation of the neuronal reactivity of the DLPFC and its impact on human moral reasoning provides an opportunity to establish the missing causal relationship, as electrostimulation techniques like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), in general, may help to establish the causal relationship between brain states and behavior [20]. TDCS as a particular application of transcranial electrostimulation is a non-invasive brain stimulation method to produce a change of neural activity of certain brain regions [21]. ...
... Several studies provide evidence for anodal stimulation enhancing motor, perceptual and cognitive functions (for an overview see Nitsche, Cohen [23]). Thus tDCS seems to be a powerful tool to investigate whether a certain brain activity is closely involved in the implementation of certain actions [20]. The possibility to change moral behavior by brain stimulation has been demonstrated via repetitive TMS. ...
Article
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Attitude to morality, reflecting cultural norms and values, is considered unique to human social behavior. Resulting moral behavior in a social environment is controlled by a widespread neural network including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), which plays an important role in decision making. In the present study we investigate the influence of neurophysiological modulation of DLPFC reactivity by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on moral reasoning. For that purpose we administered anodal, cathodal, and sham stimulation of the left DLPFC while subjects judged the appropriateness of hard moral personal dilemmas. In contrast to sham and cathodal stimulation, anodal stimulation induced a shift in judgment of personal moral dilemmas towards more non-utilitarian actions. Our results demonstrate that alterations of left DLPFC activity can change moral judgments and, in consequence, provide a causal link between left DLPFC activity and moral reasoning. Most important, the observed shift towards non-utilitarian actions suggests that moral decision making is not a permanent individual trait but can be manipulated; consequently individuals with boundless, uncontrollable, and maladaptive moral behavior, such as found in psychopathy, might benefit from neuromodulation-based approaches. © 2015 Kuehne et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
... Neuroscience developments have introduced the use of noninvasive brain stimulation tools in order to test conclusions from neuroimaging findings and to determine if the neuroimaging implication is causally connected to behavior such as deception or to validate neuroimaging results linked to deception. For this purpose, two noninvasive techniques are used: transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) [41]. TMS discharges brief current pulses that quickly change the magnetic field around the coil held on the head. ...
Article
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Hidden information is the key to many security issues. If there is a reliable method to determine whether someone withholds information, many issues of this type can be resolved. However, until now, no method has proven to be reliable, but technical discoveries in the field of neuroimaging have caused a surge of new research in this area. Many neuroimaging techniques can be used, but functional magnetic resonance is the newest method, and its use in extracting and evaluating information from subjects could be the most significant, given that it records brain states in parallel with current mental activity/behavior, enabling the establishment of correlational links between them. Because the brain state displayed during fMRI imaging is the dependent variable measured during stimulus/task condition manipulation, it is necessary to use fMRI data in combination with complementary criminal interrogation techniques to gather information. This could be particularly important when standard interrogational techniques are not enough in order to preserve the common good, especially in “ticking bomb” situations. In this study, we review aspects of the possibility of utilizing advanced neuroimaging in combination with criminal interrogation in cases of serious criminal acts that threaten public safety.
... For example, in the case of deception, neuroscientists have identified cortical areas such as regions of the prefrontal cortex that are activated during deceptive behavior [Abe et al., 2007]. It is currently debated, however, if these areas are causally important for deception or if activating them reliably alters deceptive behavior [Robertson et al., 2003, Luber et al., 2009]. ...
Preprint
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As deep learning systems are scaled up to many billions of parameters, relating their internal structure to external behaviors becomes very challenging. Although daunting, this problem is not new: Neuroscientists and cognitive scientists have accumulated decades of experience analyzing a particularly complex system - the brain. In this work, we argue that interpreting both biological and artificial neural systems requires analyzing those systems at multiple levels of analysis, with different analytic tools for each level. We first lay out a joint grand challenge among scientists who study the brain and who study artificial neural networks: understanding how distributed neural mechanisms give rise to complex cognition and behavior. We then present a series of analytical tools that can be used to analyze biological and artificial neural systems, organizing those tools according to Marr's three levels of analysis: computation/behavior, algorithm/representation, and implementation. Overall, the multilevel interpretability framework provides a principled way to tackle neural system complexity; links structure, computation, and behavior; clarifies assumptions and research priorities at each level; and paves the way toward a unified effort for understanding intelligent systems, may they be biological or artificial.
... Several groups have attempted to use non-invasive brain stimulation such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as a more direct approach to detection of deception than imaging. By using results found in electrophysiological and imaging studies to target cortical regions involved with specific aspects of deception, stimulation holds the attractive potential to directly interfere with brain processes involved with producing a deceptive response to produce a measurable difference in performance when being truthful or deceptive (Luber et al., 2009). TMS and tDCS have already been shown to affect behavioral performance in deceptive contexts. ...
Book
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Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be useful for therapeutic purposes for a variety of clinical conditions. Numerous studies have indicated the potential of this non- invasive brain stimulation technique to recover brain function and to study physiological mechanisms. Following this line, the articles contemplated in this Research Topic show that this field of knowledge is rapidly expanding and considerable advances have been made in the last few years. There are clinical protocols already approved for Depression (and anxiety comorbid with major depressive disorder), Obsessive compulsive Disorder (OCD), migraine headache with aura, and smoking cessation treatment but many studies are concentrating their efforts on extending its application to other diseases, e.g., as a treatment adjuvant. In this Research Topic we have the example of using TMS for pain, post-stroke depression, or smoking cessation, but other diseases/injuries of the central nervous system need attention (e.g., tinnitus or the surprising epilepsy). Further, the potential of TMS in health is being explored, in particular regarding memory enhancement or the mapping of motor control regions, which might also have implications for several diseases. TMS is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that can be used for modulating brain activation or to study connectivity between brain regions. It has proven efficacy against neurological and neuropsychiatric illnesses but the response to this stimulation is still highly variable. Research works devoted to studying the response variability to TMS, as well as large-scale studies demonstrating its efficacy in different sub-populations, are therefore of utmost importance. In this editorial, we summarize the main findings and viewpoints detailed within each of the 12 contributing articles using TMS for health and/or disease applications
... Several groups have attempted to use non-invasive brain stimulation such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as a more direct approach to detection of deception than imaging. By using results found in electrophysiological and imaging studies to target cortical regions involved with specific aspects of deception, stimulation holds the attractive potential to directly interfere with brain processes involved with producing a deceptive response to produce a measurable difference in performance when being truthful or deceptive (Luber et al., 2009). TMS and tDCS have already been shown to affect behavioral performance in deceptive contexts. ...
Article
Full-text available
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was used to test the functional role of parietal and prefrontal cortical regions activated during a playing card Guilty Knowledge Task (GKT). Single-pulse TMS was applied to 15 healthy volunteers at each of three target sites: left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and midline parietal cortex. TMS pulses were applied at each of five latencies (from 0 to 480 ms) after the onset of a card stimulus. TMS applied to the parietal cortex exerted a latency-specific increase in inverse efficiency score and in reaction time when subjects were instructed to lie relative to when asked to respond with the truth, and this effect was specific to when TMS was applied at 240 ms after stimulus onset. No effects of TMS were detected at left or right DLPFC sites. This manipulation with TMS of performance in a deception task appears to support a critical role for the parietal cortex in intentional false responding, particularly in stimulus selection processes needed to execute a deceptive response in the context of a GKT. However, this interpretation is only preliminary, as further experiments are needed to compare performance within and outside of a deceptive context to clarify the effects of deceptive intent.
... Neuromodulation with tDCS, for instance, has already been discussed as a tool to enhance or improve general moral reasoning and behavior (Conan, 2019) and it's potential to improve empathy or reduce violent behavior is also being reviewed (Sergiou, Santarnecchi, Franken, & Van Dongen, 2019). By inhibiting cortical excitability tDCS has also been used to establish a relationship between deceptive behavior and cortical activity (Luber, Fisher, Appelbaum, Ploesser, & Lisanby, 2009). Using tDCS deceptive behavior was facilitated while a decrease in feelings of guilt was observed presumably through a reduction of moral conflict (Karim et al., 2010). ...
... An honest deliberation on the extension of the current IT landscape to technologies involving the brain portraits a dystopic picture of a future with spying daemons delivered as beautifully packaged updates that instead of webcams, hijack eyes and thoughts or with neuro-marketing Nazis controlling and paying people by electrical signals delivered directly to the brain reward centers. What is most alarming in these scenarios is that the very same BMI technologies can be used to detect and snooze any thoughts of opting out of such gimmicks by the user [84]. ...
... which, for example, can electrically stimulate the brain to impede users' responses when they are lying (Bonaci et al., 2015, p. 35;Luber et al., 2009). ...
Chapter
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Neuromarketing utilizes innovative technologies to accomplish two key tasks: 1) gathering data about the ways in which human beings’ cognitive processes can be influenced by particular stimuli; and 2) creating and delivering stimuli to influence the behavior of potential consumers. In this text, we argue that rather than utilizing specialized systems such as EEG and fMRI equipment (for data gathering) and web-based microtargeting platforms (for influencing behavior), it will increasingly be possible for neuromarketing practitioners to perform both tasks by accessing and exploiting neuroprosthetic devices already possessed by members of society. We first present an overview of neuromarketing and neuroprosthetic devices. A two-dimensional conceptual framework is then developed that can be used to identify the technological and biocybernetic capacities of different types of neuroprosthetic devices for performing neuromarketing-related functions. One axis of the framework delineates the main functional types of sensory, motor, and cognitive neural implants; the other describes the key neuromarketing activities of gathering data on consumers’ cognitive activity and influencing their behavior. This framework is then utilized to identify potential neuromarketing applications for a diverse range of existing and anticipated neuroprosthetic technologies. It is hoped that this analysis of the capacities of neuroprosthetic devices to be utilized in neuromarketing-related roles can: 1) lay a foundation for subsequent analyses of whether such potential applications are desirable or inappropriate from ethical, legal, and operational perspectives; and 2) help information security professionals develop effective mechanisms for protecting neuroprosthetic devices against inappropriate or undesired neuromarketing techniques while safeguarding legitimate neuromarketing activities.
... In one of these studies 20 the authors found that different patterns of brain activation arise when people tell lies and when they tell the truth, and the type of lie modulates these patterns, in a way that the generation of various types of lies engages different combinations of general-purpose cognitive processes which may provide reliable neural signatures for various types of lies. In another study 21 the authors conclude that it is implausible to think that there is a single and simple ''deception network'' to be discovered. Instead, it is likely that deceptive behaviour results from a systematic combination of cognitive processes. ...
Article
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http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1677-2954.2011v10n1p109It is widely known that neuroscience research can lead humankind to understand and combat many illnesses or conditions that cause untold suffering around the world such as dementia, Alzheimer’s, depression or stress and can also lead us to achieve considerable improvements in memory, learning abilities, executive functions, moods and in many others areas related to cognition and emotion. In this article I will be focusing specifically on the research related to the neuroscience of ethics. The neuroscience of ethics is an area of neuroethics that is concerned with the understanding of the brains mechanism that are involved in moral cognition and in our ethical (or anti-ethical) decisions, and I propose here to expand this concept a little further, defining neuroscience of ethics as the field concerned to the understanding of the brain mechanisms of all main behaviours related to ethics and morality. In this article I identify a set of neuroscience studies that have been published in the last 10 years and that are relevant for ethics, shedding light on behaviours such as altruism, generosity, selfconfidence, trust , altruistic punishment, violence, lying and prejudice, all of them connected somehow to morality. I then discuss how the understanding of each one of these behaviours can benefit society and how we can use this research to help humankind to improve moral standards and promote general happiness.
... πλδπαζκφο ηεο εγθεθαιηθήο δηέγεξζεο κε ηελ BCI εθαξκφδεηαη ζε πεηξακαηφδσα ή/θαη αλζξψπνπο γηα ηε βειηίσζε ηεο κάζεζεο, ηεο απνκλεκφλεπζεο, γηα ηε δηακφξθσζε επηιεγκέλεο ζπλαηζζεκαηηθήο-ςπρηθήο δηάζεζεο (mood formation) (George, 1996;Regalado, 2014), ηε δεκηνπξγία ςεπδψλ αλακλήζεσλ (De Lavilléon, 2015), ηε δηαγξαθή ηξαπκαηηθψλ αλακλήζεσλ (Lu, 2015), ηελ ηξνπνπνίεζε γνληδηαθψλ πξσηετλψλ (Folcher, 2014), ηελ αιιαγή ζηάζεσλ γηα θνηλσληθά ή θαζεκεξηλά ζέκαηα, εζηθήο, πνιηηηθήο, θαηαλαισηηθψλ πξντφλησλ θ.ά. (Young, 2010;Knoch, 2006;Fecteau, 2007;Lo, 2003;Luber, 2009). Η πεξαηηέξσ δηεξεχλεζε ησλ λεπξσληθψλ κεραληζκψλ ηεο νκηιίαο, φξαζεο, αθνήο, αληίιεςεο (George, 2003;George, 2007) είλαη αθφκα δεηνχκελν ηνπ ζπλδπαζκνχ εγθεθαιηθήο δηέγεξζεο θαη BCI. ...
Conference Paper
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Ως εγκεφαλική διέγερση ορίζεται η προσπάθεια αλλαγής της λειτουργικής κατάστασης κι εγρήγορσης του ανθρώπινου εγκεφάλου. Κάποιες εφαρμογές της είναι η βελτίωση της υγείας ατόμων που πάσχουν από νευρολογικές παθήσεις, η ενίσχυση της μνήμης, η ανάπτυξη νέων δεξιοτήτων, η μάθηση κ.ά. Ορισμένες από τις παραπάνω εφαρμογές επιτυγχάνονται μέσω της διασύνδεσης εγκεφάλου-υπολογιστή (Brain-Computer Interface, BCI). Εκτός της εγκεφαλικής διέγερσης, η BCI εφαρμόζεται στην επιτέλεση ενεργειών μόνο με τη σκέψη όπως η τηλεκατεύθυνση οχημάτων, αναπηρικών αμαξιδίων, ηλεκτρονικών παιχνιδιών, η τροποποίηση γονιδιακών πρωτεϊνών, η ενδοεπικοινωνία εγκεφάλων χωρίς εκφορά λόγου, η διασύνδεση εγκεφάλων σε ένα διευρυμένο δίκτυο υπολογιστών κ.ά. Παρά τη διαπιστωμένη χρησιμότητα και των δύο τεχνικών (εγκεφαλικής διέγερσης και BCI), έχουν διατυπωθεί ορισμένοι προβληματισμοί για τη βιολογική ασφάλεια του ανθρώπου λόγω εκπομπής ηλεκτρομαγνητικής ακτινοβολίας εγγύς ή εντός του εγκεφάλου. Επιπλέον έχουν διατυπωθεί ενστάσεις για θέματα αλλαγής στοιχείων του χαρακτήρα των εμπλεκομένων, θέματα δικαιοσύνης, ίσης μεταχείρισης και τέλος θέματα ελευθερίας κι ενδεχόμενης παραβίασης θεμελιωδών ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων.
... Other emerging methods that have the potential to manipulate memories include minimally 5 invasive brain stimulation techniques such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) (George et al. 2009;Luber et al. 2009;Sparing and Mottaghy 2008). These methods stimulate the brain either by inducing an electrical field using a magnetic coil placed against the head (TMS), or by applying weak electrical currents via electrodes on the scalp (tDCS) (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 2013). ...
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In recent years, discussion around memory modification interventions has gained attention. However, discussion around the use of memory interventions in the criminal justice system has been mostly absent. In this paper we start by highlighting the importance memory has for human well-being and personal identity, as well as its role within the criminal forensic setting; in particular, for claiming and accepting legal responsibility, for moral learning, and for retribution. We provide examples of memory interventions that are currently available for medical purposes, but that in the future could be used in the forensic setting to modify criminal offenders' memories. In this section we contrast the cases of (1) dampening and (2) enhancing memories of criminal offenders. We then present from a pragmatic approach some pressing ethical issues associated with these types of memory interventions. The paper ends up highlighting how these pragmatic considerations can help establish ethically justified criteria regarding the possibility of interventions aimed at modifying criminal offenders' memories.
... However, since imaging studies are in essence correlation studies, they do not allow conclusions with regard to the functional necessity of brain regions. In order to investigate the functional necessity of this region for deception, one would need to experimentally manipulate its activity level and investigate the impact on deception (Sack, 2006;Luber et al., 2009). Here, we present the first study that used rTMS to unravel the functional relevance of the inferior frontal region for deception. ...
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Response inhibition is defined as the capacity to adequately withdraw pre-planned responses. It has been shown that individuals with deficits in inhibiting pre-planned responses tend to display more aggressive behaviour. The prefrontal cortex is involved in both, response inhibition and aggression. While response inhibition is mostly associated with predominantly right prefrontal activity, the neural components underlying aggression seem to be left-lateralized. These differences in hemispheric dominance are conceptualized in cortical asymmetry theories on motivational direction, which assign avoidance motivation (relevant to inhibit responses) to the right and approach motivation (relevant for aggressive actions) to the left prefrontal cortex. The current study aimed to directly address the inverse relationship between response inhibition and aggression by assessing them within one experiment. Sixty-nine healthy participants underwent bilateral transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) to the inferior frontal cortex. In one group we induced right-hemispheric fronto-cortical dominance by means of a combined right prefrontal anodal and left prefrontal cathodal tDCS montage. In a second group we induced left-hemispheric fronto-cortical dominance by means of a combined left prefrontal anodal and right prefrontal cathodal tDCS montage. A control group received sham stimulation. Response inhibition was assessed with a go/no-go task (GNGT) and aggression with the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP). We revealed that participants with poorer performance in the GNGT displayed more aggression during the TAP. No effects of bilateral prefrontal tDCS on either response inhibition or aggression were observed. This is at odds with previous brain stimulation studies applying unilateral protocols. Our results failed to provide evidence in support of the prefrontal cortical asymmetry model in the domain of response inhibition and aggression. The absence of tDCS effects might also indicate that the methodological approach of shifting cortical asymmetry by means of bilateral tDCS protocols has failed.
... Two of these characteristics were exploratory: deliberateness, risk-taking. We chose risk-taking because deception often involves risk-assessment (see Luber, Fisher, Appelbaum, Ploesser, & Lisanby, 2009 for review). We chose deliberateness; the quality of being thoughtful or careful, as it is involved in risk-assessment. ...
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The goals of this project were to evaluate the structure of deceptive behaviors in college students and investigate relationships between personality and these behaviors. After developing nine categories of deceptions (Study 1), we created and administered a self-report instrument to undergraduate college students (Study 2) that assessed use of the categories as well as several self-report personality measures. We hypothesized a structure to our data that decomposed the original deception categories into three classes: Self-gain, Impression-Manipulation, and Disclosure. The instrument was revised and re-administered to a new group of students in Study 3. Our measurement model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). Variability on the resulting two classes of deceptions was predicted by unique combinations of personality traits. We suggest that categories of lying represent a hierarchy of broad to more specific types.
... By contrast to the uncontrolled nature and extent of naturally occurring brain damage that produces loss of function, TMS techniques provide causal data on the role of particular brain areas by creating more controlled "temporary lesions" and a small number of TMS studies of deception has been conducted thus far. For example, Lubner's group (described in Luber et al., 2009) performed a single-pulse TMS study in which stimulation was delivered over a series of intervals between 0 and 480 ms after stimulus presentation in a playing-card GKT paradigm. Based on previous results, they applied stimulation over left DLPFC, with stimulation of parietal precuneus cortex as a control. ...
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Although all credibility assessment measures, whether behavioral, cognitive, or emotional, arise from brain activity in the central nervous system, little was known about the neural basis of deception. The chapter describes how research in the new discipline of cognitive neuroscience, which aims to unify psychology and neurobiology, can reveal the neurocognitive basis of a complex function like deception. This research uses powerful new brain-imaging techniques, both electrophysiological and hemodynamic, to observe where and when different brain areas are activated when persons are engaged in deception. Despite the fact that this research only began a little over a decade ago, many new and important insights into how the cognitive and brain processes used during deception are instantiated in the brain have already been obtained. The chapter provides an integrated review of both the basic and applied neurocognitive studies conducted to date.
... This consideration only applies to applicative expectationsnot to the utility and importance of such research within basic science. The in-lab testing protocols have not been validated against real-world situations (Luber et al., 2009), and the relation between modulation of deceits and its effects on other brain functions are still unclear, as is the role of individual differences (see Levasseur-Moreau et al., 2013 for a thorough discussion). ...
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The production of expectations or future-goals for the development of techniques which "read" and modulate brain function, represent an important practical tool for neuroscientists. These visions-of-the-future assist scientists by providing focus for both individual and cross-disciplinary research programs; they encourage the development of new industrial sectors, are used to justify the allocation of government resources and funding, and via the media can help capture the imagination and support of the public. However, such expectations need to be tempered by reality. Over-hyping brain imaging and modulation will lead to disappointment; disappointment that in turn can undermine its potential. Similarly, if neuroscientists focus their attention narrowly on the science without concomitant consideration of its future ethical, legal and social implications, then their expectations may remain unrealized. To develop these arguments herein we introduce the theoretical concept of expectations and the practical consequences of expectations. We contextualize these reflections by referring to brain imaging and modulation studies on deception, which encompass the measurement-suppression-augmentation range.
... For example, because neuroimaging studies are correlational, they cannot definitively determine the necessity of any brain region for deception. Evidence that can determine necessity is provided by loss-of-function studies that investigate permanent inability to lie as a function of neuropsychological impairment, or a transient inability to lie due to " temporary lesions " instantiated using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) or transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) (for a review seeLuber et al., 2009). Unfortunately, evidence from loss-of-function studies regarding the role of PFC in deception has been inconsistent. ...
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There is evidence to suggest that successful lying necessitates cognitive effort. We tested this hypothesis by instructing participants to lie or tell the truth under conditions of high and low working memory (WM) load. The task required participants to register a response on 80 trials of identical structure within a 2 (WM Load: high, low) × 2 (Instruction: truth or lie) repeated-measures design. Participants were less accurate and responded more slowly when WM load was high, and also when they lied. High WM load activated the fronto-parietal WM network including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), middle frontal gyrus, precuneus, and intraparietal cortex. Lying activated areas previously shown to underlie deception, including middle and superior frontal gyrus and precuneus. Critically, successful lying in the high vs. low WM load condition was associated with longer response latency, and it activated the right inferior frontal gyrus—a key brain region regulating inhibition. The same pattern of activation in the inferior frontal gyrus was absent when participants told the truth. These findings demonstrate that lying under high cognitive load places a burden on inhibition, and that the right inferior frontal gyrus may provide a neural marker for successful lying.
... Karim et al. (2010) could enhance the ability to lie by modulating activity in a contiguous part of the frontal lobe, the anterior prefrontal cortex. It thus seems possible to manipulate efficiency in lie production by targeting specific brain regions (see Luber et al., 2009, for a discussion of related ethical implications), although careful task analysis, replication and clarification of the underlying mechanisms of action of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques need to be carried out before endorsing any mass applications. This should suggest how in basic neuroscience (1) fMRI can contribute to our models of the brain substrates of lying, however for completeness its evidence is best integrated with evidence from complementary techniques, (2) fMRI evidence alone does not provide compelling evidence as to whether certain neural substrates are strictly necessary to the process of lying. ...
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Following the demise of the polygraph, supporters of assisted scientific lie detection tools have enthusiastically appropriated neuroimaging technologies “as the savior of scientifically verifiable lie detection in the courtroom” (Gerard, 2008: 5). These proponents believe the future impact of neuroscience “will be inevitable, dramatic, and will fundamentally alter the way the law does business” (Erickson, 2010: 29); however, such enthusiasm may prove premature. For in nearly every article published by independent researchers in peer reviewed journals, the respective authors acknowledge that fMRI research, processes, and technology are insufficiently developed and understood for gatekeepers to even consider introducing these neuroimaging measures into criminal courts as they stand today for the purpose of determining the veracity of statements made. Regardless of how favorable their analyses of fMRI or its future potential, they all acknowledge the presence of issues yet to be resolved. Even assuming a future where these issues are resolved and an appropriate fMRI lie-detection process is developed, its integration into criminal trials is not assured for the very success of such a future system may necessitate its exclusion from courtrooms on the basis of existing legal and ethical prohibitions. In this piece, aimed for a multidisciplinary readership, we seek to highlight and bring together the multitude of hurdles which would need to be successfully overcome before fMRI can (if ever) be a viable applied lie detection system. We argue that the current status of fMRI studies on lie detection meets neither basic legal nor scientific standards. We identify four general classes of hurdles (scientific, legal and ethical, operational, and social) and provide an overview on the stages and operations involved in fMRI studies, as well as the difficulties of translating these laboratory protocols into a practical criminal justice environment. It is our overall conclusion that fMRI is unlikely to constitute a viable lie detector for criminal courts.
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This article presents the impact of constitutional courts in shaping the fair trial standards in the context of new technologies application in the criminal proceedings. Surveillance measures based on the use of new technologies by law enforcement agencies are highly intrusive in nature and may violate not only the constitutional right to privacy, but also, in the author's opinion, guarantees of the fair trial and procedural rights of the suspect. The aim of the article is to indicate to what extent constitutional courts have contributed to establishing the procedural standards in the activities of gathering evidence using new technologies (regarding both content and metadata), as well as to present potential problems in this area that courts will have to face in the future.
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The use of tools to perturb brain activity can generate important insights into brain physiology and offer valuable therapeutic approaches for brain disorders. Furthermore, the potential of such tools to enhance normal behavior has become increasingly recognized, and this has led to the development of various noninvasive technologies that provides a broader access to the human brain. While providing a brief survey of brain manipulation procedures used in the past decades, this review aims at stimulating an informed discussion on the use of these new technologies to investigate the human. It highlights the importance to revisit the past use of this unique armamentarium and proceed to a detailed analysis of its present state, especially in regard to human behavioral regulation.
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In the past decade, the functional role of the TPJ (Temporal Parietal Junction) has become more evident in terms of its contribution to social cognition. Studies have revealed the TPJ as a ‘distinguisher’ of self and other with research focused on non-clinical populations as well as in individuals with Autism and Type I Schizophrenia. Further research has focused on the integration of self-other distinctions with proprioception. Much of what we now know about the causal role of the right TPJ derives from TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation), rTMS repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation), and tDCS (transcranial Direct Cortical Stimulation). In this review, we focus on the role of the right TPJ as a moderator of self, which is integrated and distinct from ‘other’ and how brain stimulation has established the causal relationship between the underlying cortex and agency.
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Brain training with the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation and neurofeedback is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, USA. There are various neurological and psychological illnesses where this type of brain stimulation helps in improving learning and improving quality of life. This chapter includes present uses of brain stimulation training in various brain diseases. The procedure of brain retraining is related to operant conditioning in which amplitude, frequency, and coherence of electrical activity influence the brain electrical activity of the human being.
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Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has proven to be a useful tool for fundamental brain research as well as for attempts in therapy of neurological and psychiatric diseases by modulating neuronal plasticity. Little is understood how the effects of tDCS are influenced by hemispheric dominance, even less in terms of handedness. The aim of this study was to investigate whether tDCS induced neuroplastic changes may be different in right- and left-handed individuals due to existing differences in hemispheric lateralisation. We measured changes in motor evoked potentials (MEPs) after application of tDCS in 8 right-handers, 8 left-handers and 8 mixed-handers according to the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI). In double-blind sessions, we applied either anodal or cathodal tDCS for 5 minutes for each hemisphere. While motor thresholds (MT) seem to be not influenced by handedness significantly, in right-handed subjects we reproduced the well-known effects of tDCS: anodal stimulation increased while cathodal stimulation decreased MEP amplitudes. However, left-and mixed-handed subjects differed from right-handed subjects. After anodal stimulation of the left hemisphere the increase of the MEP amplitudes was stronger in right handed subjects than in left and mixed handed subjects. Interestingly, after cathodal stimulation of the left hemisphere this difference was less marked. The stimulation of the right hemisphere showed the same tendency, but results were not significant. For the first time, we are able to demonstrate that the modulating effects of tDCS on corticospinal excitability differ moderately in the left-and mixed-handed population compared to right-handed subjects. The shown differences according to handedness should be taken into account in further studies.
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This text develops a model based on network topology that can be used to analyze or engineer the structures and dynamics of an organization in which neuroprosthetic technologies are employed to enhance the abilities of human personnel. We begin by defining neuroprosthetic supersystems as organizations whose members include multiple neuroprosthetically augmented human beings. It is argued that the expanded sensory, cognitive, and motor capacities provided by ‘posthumanizing’ neuroprostheses may enable human beings possessing such technologies to collaborate using novel types of organizational structures that differ from the traditional structures that are possible for unaugmented human beings. The concept of network topology is then presented as a concrete approach to analyzing or engineering such neuroprosthetic supersystems. A number of common network topologies such as chain, linear bus, tree, ring, hub-and-spoke, partial mesh, and fully connected mesh topologies are discussed and their relative advantages and disadvantages noted. Drawing on the notion of different architectural ‘views’ employed in enterprise architecture, we formulate a topological model that incorporates five views that are relevant for neuroprosthetic supersystems: the (1) physical and (2) logical topologies of the neuroprosthetic devices themselves; (3) the natural topology of social relations of the devices’ human hosts; (4) the topology of the virtual environments, if any, created and accessed by means of the neuroprostheses; and (5) the topology of the brain-to-brain communication, if any, facilitated by the devices. Potential uses of the model are illustrated by applying it to four hypothetical types of neuroprosthetic supersystems: (1) an emergency medical alert system incorporating body sensor networks (BSNs); (2) an array of centrally hosted virtual worlds; (3) a ‘hive mind’ administered by a central hub; and (4) a distributed hive mind lacking a central hub. It is our hope that models such as the one formulated here will prove useful not only for engineering neuroprosthetic supersystems to meet functional requirements but also for analyzing the legal, ethical, and social aspects of potential or existing supersystems, to ensure that the organizational deployment of neuroprosthetic technologies does not undermine the wellbeing of such devices’ human users or of societies as a whole.
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When designing target architectures for organizations, the discipline of enterprise architecture has historically relied a set of assumptions regarding the physical, cognitive, and social capacities of the human beings serving as organizational members. In this text we explore the fact that for those organizations that intentionally deploy posthumanizing neuroprosthetic technologies among their personnel, such traditional assumptions no longer hold true: the use of advanced neuroprostheses intensifies the ongoing structural, systemic, and procedural fusion of human personnel and electronic information systems in a way that provides workers with new capacities and limitations and transforms the roles available to them. Such use of neuroprostheses has the potential to affect an organization’s workers in three main areas. First, the use of neuroprostheses may affect workers’ physical form, as reflected in the physical components of their bodies, the role of design in their physical form, their length of tenure as workers, the developmental cycles that they experience, their spatial extension and locality, the permanence of their physical substrates, and the nature of their personal identity. Second, neuroprostheses may affect the information processing and cognition of neurocybernetically augmented workers, as manifested in their degree of sapience, autonomy, and volitionality; their forms of knowledge acquisition; their locus of information processing and data storage; their emotionality and cognitive biases; and their fidelity of data storage, predictability of behavior, and information security vulnerabilities. Third, the deployment of neuroprostheses can affect workers’ social engagement, as reflected in their degree of sociality; relationship to organizational culture; economic relationship with their employers; and rights, responsibilities, and legal status. While ethical, legal, economic, and functional factors will prevent most organizations from deploying advanced neuroprostheses among their personnel for the foreseeable future, a select number of specialized organizations (such as military departments) are already working to develop such technologies and implement them among their personnel. The enterprise architectures of such organizations will be forced to evolve to accommodate the new realities of human-computer integration brought about by the posthumanizing neuroprosthetic technologies described in this text.
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The discipline of enterprise architecture (EA) seeks to generate alignment between an organization’s electronic information systems, human resources, business processes, workplace culture, mission and strategy, and external ecosystem in order to increase the organization’s ability to manage complexity, resolve internal conflicts, and adapt proactively to environmental change. In this text, an introduction to the definition, history, organizational role, objectives, benefits, mechanics, and popular implementations of enterprise architecture is presented. The historical shift from IT-centric to business-centric definitions of EA is reviewed, along with the difference between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ approaches to EA. The unique organizational role of EA is highlighted by comparing it with other management disciplines and practices. The creation of alignment is explored as the core mechanism by which EA achieves advantageous effects. Different kinds of alignment are defined, the history of EA as a generator of alignment is investigated, and EA’s relative effectiveness at creating different types of alignment is candidly assessed. Attention is given to the key dynamic by which alignment yields deeper integration of an organization’s structures, processes, and systems, which in turn grants the organization greater agility – which itself enhances the organization’s ability to implement rapid and strategically directed change. The types of tasks undertaken by enterprise architects are discussed, and a number of popular enterprise architecture frameworks are highlighted. A generic EA framework is then presented as a means of discussing elements such as architecture domains, building blocks, views, and landscapes that form the core of many EA frameworks. The role of modelling languages in documenting EA plans is also addressed. In light of enterprise architecture’s strengths as a tool for managing the deployment of innovative forms of IT, it is suggested that by adopting EA initiatives of the sort described here, organizations may better position themselves to address the new social, economic, and operational realities presented by emerging ‘posthumanizing’ technologies such as those relating to social robotics, nanorobotics, artificial life, genetic engineering, neuroprosthetic augmentation, and virtual reality.
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This text examines the types of organizations that are already working to intentionally deploy neuroprosthetic technologies for human enhancement among their workforce (or are expected to do so), factors that affect their adoption of such technologies, and the organizational roles that such neurotechnologies may play. The current state of therapeutic neuroprosthetic device use is presented, along with an overview of posthumanizing neuroprostheses and the types of enhanced capacities that they offer human workers that may be relevant to organizations. A range of factors incentivizing or discouraging the organizational deployment of posthumanizing neuroprostheses is identified and discussed. The organizational roles of therapeutic and posthumanizing neuroprostheses are then analyzed. Many organizations already unknowingly incorporate workers possessing therapeutic neuroprostheses, while two key paths for the organizational deployment of posthumanizing neuroprostheses are highlighted. First is the ‘transitional augmentation’ of human workers as a stopgap measure on the path to eventual full automation of business processes through the use of AI. The second path involves retaining human workers in particular positions because exogenous factors (such as legal, ethical, or marketing requirements) mandate that human agents fill them, while augmenting the workers so that they can perform more competitively. It is noted that military organizations play a key role among organizations likely to be early adopters of posthumanizing neuroprostheses. Known and hypothesized military programs for neuroprosthetic enhancement are discussed, along with characteristics of military organizations that remove obstacles that render the deployment of neuroprostheses impractical for most organizations. Other types of organizations are highlighted that share some traits as potential early adopters. Finally, enterprise architecture (EA) is discussed as a preferred management tool for many organizations that are likely to be early adopters; while EA does not directly address the serious ethical and legal questions raised by posthumanizing neuroprostheses, it can facilitate the functional aspects of integrating neuroprosthetically augmented workers into an organization’s personnel structures, business processes, and IT systems.
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The incorporation of a neuroprosthetic device into one’s being at the physical, cognitive, and social levels constitutes a form of ‘cyborgization’ that imposes new constraints on one’s existence while simultaneously opening a path to new forms of experience. This text explores the boundaries of this qualitatively novel form of being by formulating an ontology of the neuroprosthesis as an instrument that shapes the way in which its human host experiences and acts within emerging posthumanized digital-physical ecosystems. The ontology addresses four main roles that a neuroprosthetic device may play in this context. First, a neuroprosthesis may serve as a means of human augmentation by altering the cognitive and physical capacities possessed by its host. Second, it may manipulate the contents of information produced or utilized by its human host. Third, a neuroprosthesis may shape the manner in which its host inhabits a digital-physical body and external environment. And finally, a neuroprosthesis may regulate the autonomous agency possessed and experienced by its host. The development and use of such an ontology can allow researchers to better understand the psychological, social, and ethical ramifications of such technologies and can enable the architects of neuroprosthetic systems and the digital-physical ecosystems within which their human hosts operate to formulate principles of design and management that minimize the dangers and maximize benefits for the neuroprosthetically augmented inhabitants of such environments.
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In this text, we develop an ontology that envisions, captures, and describes the full range of ways in which a neuroprosthesis may participate in the sensory, cognitive, and motor processes of its human host. By considering anticipated future developments in neuroprosthetics and adopting a generic biocybernetic approach, the ontology is able to account for therapeutic neuroprostheses already in use as well as future types of neuroprostheses expected to be deployed for purposes of human enhancement. The ontology encompasses three areas. First, a neuroprosthesis may participate in its host’s processes of sensation by (a) detecting stimuli such as photons, sound waves, or chemicals; (b) fabricating sense data, as in the case of virtual reality systems; (c) storing sense data; (d) transmitting sense data within a neural pathway; (e) enabling its host to experience sense data through a sensory modality such as vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch, balance, heat, or pain; or (f) creating mappings of sensory routes – e.g., in order to allow sensory substitution. Second, a neuroprosthesis may participate in processes of cognition by (a) creating a basic interface between the device and the host’s conscious awareness or affecting the host’s (b) perception, (c) creativity, (d) memory and identity, or (e) reasoning and decision-making. Third, a neuroprosthesis may participate in processes of motion by (a) detecting motor instructions generated by the host’s brain; (b) fabricating motor instructions, as in the case of a medical device controlled by software algorithms rather than its host’s volitions; (c) storing motor instructions; (d) transmitting motor instructions, as within a neural pathway; (e) effectuating physical action within effectors such as natural biological muscles and glands, synthetic muscles, robotic actuators, video screens, audio speakers, or wireless transmitters; (f) allowing the expression of volitions through motor modalities such as language, paralanguage, and locomotion; or (g) creating mappings of motor routes. The use of such an ontology allows easier, more systematic, and more robust analysis of the biocybernetic role of a neuroprosthesis within its host-device system.
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Background: Neuroethics describes several interdisciplinary topics exploring the application and implications of engaging neuroscience in societal contexts. To explore this topic, we present Part 3 of a four-part bibliography of neuroethics' literature focusing on the "ethics of neuroscience." Methods: To complete a systematic survey of the neuroethics literature, 19 databases and 4 individual open-access journals were employed. Searches were conducted using the indexing language of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). A Python code was used to eliminate duplications in the final bibliography. Results: This bibliography consists of 1137 papers, 56 books, and 134 book chapters published from 2002 through 2014, covering ethical issues in neuroimaging, neurogenetics, neurobiomarkers, neuro-psychopharmacology, brain stimulation, neural stem cells, neural tissue transplants, pediatric-specific issues, dual-use, and general neuroscience research issues. These works contain explanations of recent research regarding neurotechnology, while exploring ethical issues in future discoveries and use.
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The cognitive perspective on honesty holds that deception is cognitively more demanding than truth telling. Attempted deception is associated with the activation of executive brain regions (particularly the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices), while truthful responding has not been shown to be associated with any areas of increased activation (relative to deception). This chapter discusses the recent findings regarding the cognitive correlates of deception and proposes a framework for understanding the neural mechanisms that allow people to tell lies. We explore lying from a developmental perspective and describe the findings obtained from cognitive and neuroimaging studies. Finally, in the last sections, we discusses the findings on pathological lying, on the moral brain, and on future research directions in the cognitive neuroscience of honesty.
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In the last two decades, the advent of noninvasive brain stimulation (NBS) techniques has allowed us to systematically study the functionality of various brain regions in great detail. NBS methods such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) not only can function as a tool to establish the interconnectivity of different brain networks (i.e. cognitive, motor, executive and inter-hemispheric) but can also be used as an interventional non-pharmacological means of treating various mental health and neurological disorders. The mechanism of action of NBS is centred on modulating neurophysiological processes that underpin brain plasticity, which is vital for the brain to adapt to the external environment (i.e. learning), injury or disease. The effects of TMS and tDCS are thought to primarily act upon the release of excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters at the synaptic junction and the polarity of the neuronal membrane that ultimately impacts upon the strength of communication between neurons. Particularly intriguing is that the neuro-modulatory effects of TMS and tDCS may outlast the period of stimulation. Thus NBS techniques have the potential as adjunctive or stand-alone treatments for various mental health and neurological conditions. This chapter provides an overview of the history and evidence regarding the use of NBS to measure brain function and will explore the interventional effects of NBS on cognition in healthy and clinical populations. Lastly, this chapter will discuss the strengths and limitations of current NBS systems and the potential for combining micronutrients (using the example of caffeine) and NBS to improve cognitive function.
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Deception occurs not only with adult communication but also it impacts in a deep core among the school children information sharing system towards the society. Sometimes deceptive information such as a fake expression may be difficult for the well experienced or a deception detection expert to identify the presence and rate of deceptive datum. In this research paper we provide the techniques of Fuzzified approach with its main core of implementation strategies for identifying the deceptive datum. The important phenomenons adopted by the school children are included for our proposed research model. The results are compared and discussed for future developments.
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The structure and behavior of a neuroprosthetic device can be analyzed from different perspectives. In this text, we formulate an ontology that can be employed to describe the fundamental characteristics of a neuroprosthesis in its role as a computing device. The ontology draws on existing neuroprosthetic device typologies and ontologies developed for other kinds of devices such as mobile devices and robotic systems. It describes four key aspects that shape the functioning of a neuroprosthesis as computing device: 1) the device’s external context (including the human agents who participate in its development and use, factors impacting the device’s availability, and the device’s relationship to the body of its human host); 2) physical components of the neuroprosthesis (including the device’s basic morphology, input and output mechanisms, and computational substrate); 3) processes utilized by the device (including computational processes and input and output modalities); and 4) the types of information generated or handled by the device (which may include data regarding the device’s status and environment, data regarding the cognitive and biological processes of the device’s human host, and procedural and declarative knowledge). The use of such an ontology allows the functionality of a neuroprosthesis as a computing device to be more easily analyzed or designed and facilitates interoperability between neuroprostheses, their human hosts and users, and external computer systems.
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When an emotion is concealed or repressed, the true emotion may be manifest as a micro-expression, a fleeting facial expression discordant with the expressed emotion, usually suppressed within 1/25 to 1/5 of a second, and closely related to the deception. This article is a review of all the studies reported about micro-expression. Earlier researchers focused on the measurement of abilities to recognize micro-expression. Because of the development of measurement tools, a large number of micro-expression recognition studies emerged within the clinical domain. However, only one published empirical study has explored the generation of micro-expression, and many questions are left unanswered. Further research should focus on the cross-culture validity of Micro-Expression Training Tool (METT), the generation of micro-expression, and the development of automatic micro-expression recognition tools. Micro-expression studies can provide important insights into the development of an automatic deception detection system.
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Deception detection is an essential strategy for the efficient and secure communication. The implementation of soft computing techniques such as fuzzy logic, uncertainty, randomness, neural networks and genetic algorithm plays a vital role in identifying the deception in an information sharing system. The combined implementation of fuzziness, randomness and uncertainty provides the maximum output than compare it with the individual implementations is an obvious result. In this study, researchers analyze the combined performance and dependency computation for the combined application of randomness, fuzziness and uncertainty towards deception detection. Researchers considers two different domains for the proposed model and the final results are discussed.
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Conference Paper
An increasing number of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are being developed in medical and nonmedical fields, including marketing, gaming and entertainment industries. BCI-enabled technology carries a great potential to improve and enhance the quality of human lives. It provides people suffering from severe neuromuscular disorders with a way to interact with the external environment. It also enables a more personalized user experience in gaming and entertainment. These BCI applications are, however, not without risk. Established engineering practices set guarantees on performance, reliability and physical safety of BCIs. But no guarantees or standards are currently in place regarding user privacy and security. In this paper, we identify privacy and security issues arising from possible misuse or inappropriate use of BCIs. In particular, we explore how current and emerging non-invasive BCI platforms can be used to extract private information, and we suggest an interdisciplinary approach to mitigating this problem. We then propose a tool to prevent this side-channel extraction of users' private information. This is a first step towards making BCI-enabled technologies secure and privacy preserving.
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The past decade has seen a rise in the use of different technologies aimed at enhancing cognition of normal healthy individuals. While values have been acknowledged to be an important aspect of cognitive enhancement practices, the discussion has predominantly focused on just a few values, such as safety, peer pressure, and authenticity. How are values, in a broader sense, affected by enhancing cognitive abilities? Is this dependent on the type of technology or intervention used to attain the enhancement, or does the cognitive domain targeted play a bigger role in how values are affected? Values are not only likely to be affected by cognitive enhancement practices; they also play a crucial role in defining the type of interventions that are likely to be undertaken. This paper explores the way values affect and are affected by enhancing cognitive abilities. Furthermore, it argues that knowledge of the interplay between values and cognitive enhancement makes a strong case for social responsibility around cognitive enhancement practices.
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Freedom of thought is a fundamental human right, enshrined in many human rights treaties. It might very well be the only human right without any practical application. The paper reconstructs scope and meaning of this forgotten right and proposes four principles for its interpretation. In the age of neuroscientific insights and interventions into mind and brain that afford to alter thoughts, the time for the law to de fine freedom of thought in a way that lives up to its theoretical significance has come.
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The neurosciences not only challenge assumptions about the mind’s place in the natural world but also urge us to reconsider its role in the normative world. Based on mind-brain dualism, the law affords only one-sided protection: it systematically protects bodies and brains, but only fragmentarily minds and mental states. The fundamental question, in what ways people may legitimately change mental states of others, is largely unexplored in legal thinking. With novel technologies to both intervene into minds and detect mental activity, the law should, we suggest, introduce stand alone protection for the inner sphere of persons. We shall address some metaphysical questions concerning physical and mental harm and demonstrate gaps in current doctrines, especially in regard to manipulative interferences with decision-making processes. We then outline some reasons for the law to recognize a human right to mental liberty and propose elements of a novel criminal offence proscribing severe interventions into other minds.
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Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to compare activity in the human parietal cortex in two attention-switching paradigms. On each trial of the visual switching (VS) paradigm, subjects attended to one of two visual stimuli on the basis of either their color or shape. Trials were presented in blocks interleaved with cues instructing subjects to either continue attending to the currently relevant dimension or to switch to the other stimulus dimension. In the response switching (RS) paradigm, subjects made one of two manual responses to the single stimulus presented on each trial. The rules for stimulus–response mapping were reversed on different trials. Trials were presented in blocks interleaved with cues that instructed subjects to either switch stimulus–response mapping rules or to continue with the current rule. Brain activity at “switch” and “stay” events was compared. The results revealed distinct parietal areas concerned with visual attentional set shifts (VS) and visuomotor intentional set shifts (RS). In VS, activity was recorded in the lateral part of the intraparietal region. In RS, activity was recorded in the posterior medial intraparietal region and adjacent posterior superior and dorsomedial parietal cortex. The results also suggest that the basic functional organization of the intraparietal sulcus and surrounding regions is similar in both macaque and human species.
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Neuroimaging has consistently shown engagement of the prefrontal cortex during episodic memory tasks, but the functional relevance of this metabolic/hemodynamic activation in memory processing is still to be determined. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to transiently interfere with either left or right prefrontal brain activity during the encoding or retrieval of pictures showing complex scenes. We found that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) was crucial for the retrieval of the encoded pictorial information, whereas the left DLPFC was involved in encoding operations. This 'interference' approach allowed us to establish whether a cortical area activated by a memory task actually contributes to behavioral performance.
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In developing an alternative to the lie detector, a questionnaire was given 20 Ss with the GSR. 1 response in each multiple-choice item was a guilty response known to the examiner. Ss were bribed to defeat the GSR after being trained to do so. They failed. Although conventional methods may be used in more instances, this objectively scored, guilt knowledge test offers a valuable alternative. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Brain activity in humans telling lies has yet to be elucidated. We developed an objective approach to its investigation, utilizing a computer-based interrogation and fMRI. Interrogatory questions probed recent episodic memory in 30 volunteers studied outside and 10 volunteers studied inside the MR scanner. In a counter-balanced design subjects answered specified questions both truthfully and with lies. Lying was associated with longer response times (p < 0.001) and greater activity in bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortices (p < 0.05, corrected). These findings were replicated using an alternative protocol. Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex may be engaged in generating lies or withholding the truth.
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The feasibility of using Event Related Brain Potentials (ERPs) in Interrogative Polygraphy ("Lie Detection") was tested by examining the effectiveness of the Guilty Knowledge Test designed by Farwell and Donchin (1986, 1988). The subject is assigned an arbitrary task requiring discrimination between experimenter-designated targets and other, irrelevant stimuli. A group of diagnostic items ("probes"), which to the unwitting are indistinguishable from the irrelevant items, are embedded among the irrelevant. For subjects who possess "guilty knowledge" these probes are distinct from the irrelevants and are likely to elicit a P300, thus revealing their possessing the special knowledge that allows them to differentiate the probes from the irrelevants. We report two experiments in which this paradigm was tested. In Experiment 1, 20 subjects participated in one of two mock espionage scenarios and were tested for their knowledge of both scenarios. All stimuli consisted of short phrases presented for 300 ms each at an interstimulus interval of 1550 ms. A set of items were designated as "targets" and appeared on 17% of the trials. Probes related to the scenarios also appeared on 17% of the trials. The rest of the items were irrelevants. Subjects responded by pressing one switch following targets, and the other following irrelevants (and, of course, probes). ERPs were recorded from FZ, CZ, and PZ. As predicted, targets elicited large P300s in all subjects. Probes associated with a given scenario elicited a P300 in subjects who participated in that scenario. A bootstrapping method was used to assess the quality of the decision for each subject. The algorithm declared the decision indeterminate in 12.5% of the cases. In all other cases a decision was made. There were no false positives and no false negatives: whenever a determination was made it was accurate. The second experiment was virtually identical to the first, with identical results, except that this time 4 subjects were tested, each of which had a minor brush with the law. Subjects were tested to determine whether they possessed information on their own "crimes." The results were as expected; the Guilty Knowledge Test determined correctly which subject possessed which information. The implications of these data both for the practice of Interrogative Polygraphy and the interpretation of the P300 are discussed.
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Effects of countermeasures on the control-question polygraph test were examined in an experiment with 120 Ss recruited from the general community. Ss were given polygraph tests by an examiner who used field techniques. Twenty Ss were innocent, and of the 100 guilty Ss, 80 were trained in the use of either a physical countermeasure (biting the tongue or pressing the toes to the floor) or a mental countermeasure (counting backward by 7) to be applied while control questions were being presented during their examinations. The mental and physical countermeasures were equally effective: Each enabled approximately 50% of the Ss to defeat the polygraph test. The strongest countermeasure effects were observed in the cardiovascular measures. Moreover, the countermeasures were difficult to detect either instrumentally or through observation.
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Visual imagery is used in a wide range of mental activities, ranging from memory to reasoning, and also plays a role in perception proper. The contribution of early visual cortex, specifically Area 17, to visual mental imagery was examined by the use of two convergent techniques. In one, subjects closed their eyes during positron emission tomography (PET) while they visualized and compared properties (for example, relative length) of sets of stripes. The results showed that when people perform this task, Area 17 is activated. In the other, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) was applied to medial occipital cortex before presentation of the same task. Performance was impaired after rTMS compared with a sham control condition; similar results were obtained when the subjects performed the task by actually looking at the stimuli. In sum, the PET results showed that when patterns of stripes are visualized, Area 17 is activated, and the rTMS results showed that such activation underlies information processing.
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Patients sustaining lesions of the orbital prefrontal cortex (PFC) exhibit marked impairments in the performance of laboratory-based gambling, or risk-taking, tasks, suggesting that this part of the human PFC contributes to decision-making cognition. However, to date, little is known about the particular regions of the orbital cortex that participate in this function. In the present study, eight healthy volunteers were scanned, using H(2)(15)0 PET technology, while performing a novel computerized risk-taking task. The task involved predicting which of two mutually exclusive outcomes would occur, but critically, the larger reward (and penalty) was associated with choice of the least likely outcome, whereas the smallest reward (and penalty) was associated with choice of the most likely outcome. Resolving these "conflicting" decisions was associated with three distinct foci of regional cerebral blood flow increase within the right inferior and orbital PFC: laterally, in the anterior part of the middle frontal gyrus [Brodmann area 10 (BA 10)], medially, in the orbital gyrus (BA 11), and posteriorly, in the anterior portion of the inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47). By contrast, increases in the degree of conflict inherent in these decisions was associated with only limited changes in activity within orbital PFC and the anterior cingulate cortex. These results suggest that decision making recruits neural activity from multiple regions of the inferior PFC that receive information from a diverse set of cortical and limbic inputs, and that the contribution of the orbitofrontal regions may involve processing changes in reward-related information.
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The guilty knowledge polygraph test (GKT; D. T. Lykken, 1959, 1960) is a psychophysiological method of identifying suspects with concealed information about a crime. A meta-analysis of 50 treatment groups drawn from 22 laboratory simulation studies (total N = 1,247) was conducted to provide a comprehensive estimate of GKT accuracy under controlled conditions. Electrodermal measures correctly identified 76% of participants with concealed knowledge and 83% of those without information. Informed participants were detected at rates significantly in excess of chance, with a mean weighted effect size of .57. Enactment of mock crimes increased the hit rate to 82%. The rates of false-positive error among noninformed treatment groups did not significantly exceed chance. Applications and research directions are discussed.
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Neuroimaging has consistently shown engagement of the prefrontal cortex during episodic memory tasks, but the functional relevance of this metabolic/hemodynamic activation in memory processing is still to be determined. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to transiently interfere with either left or right prefrontal brain activity during the encoding or retrieval of pictures showing complex scenes. We found that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) was crucial for the retrieval of the encoded pictorial information, whereas the left DLPFC was involved in encoding operations. This 'interference' approach allowed us to establish whether a cortical area activated by a memory task actually contributes to behavioral performance.
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Selective deficits in producing verbs relative to nouns in speech are well documented in neuropsychology and have been associated with left hemisphere frontal cortical lesions resulting from stroke and other neurological disorders. The basis for these impairments is unresolved: Do they arise because of differences in the way grammatical categories of words are organized in the brain, or because of differences in the neural representation of actions and objects? We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to suppress the excitability of a portion of left prefrontal cortex and to assess its role in producing nouns and verbs. In one experiment subjects generated real words; in a second, they produced pseudowords as nouns or verbs. In both experiments, response latencies increased for verbs but were unaffected for nouns following rTMS. These results demonstrate that grammatical categories have a neuroanatomical basis and that the left prefrontal cortex is selectively engaged in processing verbs as grammatical objects.
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This study was conducted to determine whether humans' judgments about the speed and direction of moving stimuli was differentially affected by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Subjects viewed two successively presented moving stimuli that differed from each other both in speed and direction of motion. Single-pulse TMS was applied either medially (approximately 2 cm above the inion) or laterally (approximately 5 cm lateral to and 4 cm above the inion), while subjects judged the speed and direction differences. The physical stimulation (visual and TMS) was identical on the two tasks, as was discriminability (d') when TMS was not applied. We found significant criterion (beta) shifts on the speed discrimination task at both stimulation sites. Specifically, on TMS trials the proportion of "slower" judgments increased significantly, consistent with subjective reports that stimuli often appeared to slow when TMS was applied. The subjective reports indicated no corresponding change in perceived direction. We also found that speed discriminability was impaired significantly more than direction discriminability, but only when TMS was applied medially. Indeed, after controlling for TMS-related changes in reaction time, speed discriminability was impaired significantly, while direction discriminability remained largely intact. This dissociation suggests that the sensory response constraining speed discrimination is at least partially independent from the sensory response constraining direction discrimination. Combined with previous psychophysical data, the present data suggest a double dissociation between speed and direction discrimination in humans.
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It has been suggested that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is involved in free selection (FS), the process by which subjects themselves decide what action to perform. Evidence for this proposal has been provided by imaging studies showing activation of the DLPFC when subjects randomly generate responses. However, these response selection tasks have a hidden working memory element and it has been widely reported that the DLPFC is activated when subjects perform tasks which involve working memory. The primary aim of this experiment was to establish if the DLPFC is genuinely involved in response selection. We used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to investigate whether temporary interference of the DLPFC could disrupt performance of a response selection task that had no working memory component. Subjects performed tasks in which they made bimanual sequences of eight nonrepeating finger movements. In the FS task, subjects chose their movements at random while a computer monitor displayed these moves. This visual feedback obviated the need for subjects to maintain their previous moves “on-line.” No selection was required for the two control tasks as responses were cued by the visual display. The attentional demands of the control tasks varied. In the high load (HL) version, subjects had to maintain their attention throughout the sequence, but this requirement was absent in the low load (LL) task. rTMS over the DLPFC slowed response times on the FS task and at the end of the sequence on the HL task, but had no effect on the LL task. rTMS over the medial frontal cortex (MFC) slowed response times on the FS task but had no effect on the HL task. This suggests that a response selection task without a working memory load will depend on the DLPFC and the MFC. The difference appears to be that the DLPFC is important when selecting between competing responses or when concentrating if there is a high attentional demand, but that the MFC is only important during the response selection task.
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The accurate detection of deception or lying is a challenge to experts in many scientific disciplines. To investigate if specific cerebral activation characterized feigned memory impairment, six healthy male volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging with a block-design paradigm while they performed forced-choice memory tasks involving both simulated malingering and under normal control conditions. Malingering that demonstrated the existence and involvement of a prefrontal-parietal-sub-cortical circuit with feigned memory impairment produced distinct patterns of neural activation. Because astute liars feign memory impairment successfully in testing once they understand the design of the measure being employed, our study represents an extremely significant preliminary step towards the development of valid and sensitive methods for the detection of deception.
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The authors performed a meta-analysis based on 169 conditions, gathered from 80 laboratory studies, to estimate the validity of the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT) with the electrodermal measure. The overall average effect size was 1.55, but there were considerable variations among studies. In particular, mock-crime studies produced the highest average effect size (2.09). Three additional moderators were identified: Motivational instructions, deceptive ("no") verbal responses, and the use of at least 5 questions were associated with enhanced validity. Finally, a set of 10 studies that best approximated applications of the GKT under optimal conditions produced an average effect size of 3.12. The authors discuss factors that might limit the generalizability of these results and recommend further research of the GKT in realistic setups.
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The split-fovea theory proposes that visual word recognition is mediated by the splitting of the foveal image, with letters to the left of fixation projected to the right hemisphere (RH) and letters to the right of fixation projected to the left hemisphere (LH). We applied repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left and right occipital cortex during a lexical decision task to investigate the extent to which word recognition processes could be accounted for according to the split-fovea theory. Unilateral rTMS significantly impaired lexical decision latencies to centrally presented words, supporting the suggestion that foveal representation of words is split between the cerebral hemispheres rather than bilateral. Behaviorally, we showed that words that have many orthographic neighbors sharing the same initial letters (“lead neighbors”) facilitated lexical decision more than words with few lead neighbors. This effect did not apply to end neighbors (orthographic neighbors sharing the same final letters). Crucially, rTMS over the RH impaired lead-, but not end-neighborhood facilitation. The results support the split-fovea theory, where the RH has primacy in representing lead neighbors of a written word.
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Long-term, episodic memory processing is supposed to involve the prefrontal cortex asymmetrically. Here we investigate the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in encoding and retrieval of semantically related or unrelated word pairs. Subjects were required to perform a task consisting of two parts: a study phase (encoding), in which word pairs were presented, and a test phase (retrieval), during which stimuli previously presented had to be recognized among other stimuli. Consistently with our previous findings using pictures, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) had a significant impact on episodic memory. The performance was significantly disrupted when rTMS was applied to the left or right DLPFC during encoding, and to the right DLPFC in retrieval, but only for unrelated word pairs. These results indicate that the nature of the material to be remembered interacts with the encoding–retrieval DLPFC asymmetry; moreover, the crucial role of DLPFC is evident only for novel stimuli.
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The cognitive processes and neural mechanisms underlying deceptive responses were studied using behavioral responses (RT) and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) while participants made truthful and deceptive responses about perceived and remembered stimuli. Memorized words were presented in a recognition paradigm under three instructional conditions: Consistent Truthful, Consistent Deceptive, Random Deceptive. Responses that conflicted with the truth about both perceived and remembered items produced the same pattern of slower RTs and decreased LPC amplitudes. When long-term response patterns were monitored, RTs became much slower and LPC amplitudes decreased greatly. The different behavioral and ERP changes in the two deception conditions suggested that two dissociable executive control processes, each requiring additional processing resources, can contribute to deceptive responses. The parietal episodic memory (EM) effect, thought to reflect recollection, was unaffected by whether participants responded truthfully or deceptively suggesting that it provides a measure of guilty knowledge.
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During voluntary motor actions, the cortico-spinal (CS) excitability is known to be modulated, on the one hand by cognitive (intention-related) processes and, on the other hand, by motor (performance-related) processes. Here, we studied the way these processes interact in the tuning of CS excitability during voluntary wrist movement. We used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) both as a reliable tool for quantifying the CS excitability, through the motor-evoked potentials (MEPs), and as a central perturbation evoking a movement (because the stimulation intensity was above threshold) with subjects instructed to prepare (without changing their muscle activation) either to “let go” or to “resist” to this evoked movement. We studied the simultaneous evolution of both the motor performance and the MEPs in the wrist flexor and extensor, separately for the successful trials (on average, 66% of the trials whatever the condition) and the unsuccessful trials; this allowed us to dissociate the intentionand performance-related processes. To their great surprise, subjects were found able to cognitively prepare themselves to resist a TMS-induced central perturbation; they all reported an important cognitive effort on the evoked movement. Moreover, because TMS only evoked short-latency MEPs (and no long-latency components), the amplitude of these short-latency MEPs was found to be related in a continuous way to the actual movement whatever the prior intention. These results demonstrate that prior intention allows an anticipatory modulation of the CS excitability, which is not only selective (as already known) but also efficient, giving the intended motor behavior a real chance to be realized. This constitutes a direct evidence of the role of the CS excitability in the binding between cognitive and motor processes in humans.
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For a coherent and meaningful life, conscious self-representation is mandatory. Such explicit "autonoetic consciousness" is thought to emerge by retrieval of memory of personally experienced events ("episodic memory"). During episodic retrieval, functional imaging studies consistently show differential activity in medial prefrontal and medial parietal cortices. With positron-emission tomography, we here show that these medial regions are functionally connected and interact with lateral regions that are activated according to the degree of self-reference. During retrieval of previous judgments of Oneself, Best Friend, and the Danish Queen, activation increased in the left lateral temporal cortex and decreased in the right inferior parietal region with decreasing self-reference. Functionally, the former region was preferentially connected to medial prefrontal cortex, the latter to medial parietal. The medial parietal region may, then, be conceived of as a nodal structure in self-representation, functionally connected to both the right parietal and the medial prefrontal cortices. To determine whether medial parietal cortex in this network is essential for episodic memory retrieval with self-representation, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation over the region to transiently disturb neuronal circuitry. There was a decrease in the efficiency of retrieval of previous judgment of mental Self compared with retrieval of judgment of Other with transcranial magnetic stimulation at a latency of 160 ms, confirming the hypothesis. This network is strikingly similar to the network of the resting conscious state, suggesting that self-monitoring is a core function in resting consciousness.
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The primary aim of this study was to determine the extent to which human MT+/V5, an extrastriate visual area known to mediate motion processing, is involved in visuomotor coordination. To pursue this we increased or decreased the excitability of MT+/V5, primary motor, and primary visual cortex by the application of 7 min of anodal and cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in healthy human subjects while they were performing a visuomotor tracking task involving hand movements. The percentage of correct tracking movements increased specifically during and immediately after cathodal stimulation, which decreases cortical excitability, only when V5 was stimulated. None of the other stimulation conditions affected visuomotor performance. We propose that the improvement in performance caused by cathodal tDCS of V5 is due to a focusing effect on to the complex motion perception conditions involved in this task. This hypothesis was proven by additional experiments: Testing simple and complex motion perception in dot kinetograms, we found that a diminution in excitability induced by cathodal stimulation improved the subject's perception of the direction of the coherent motion only if this was presented among random dots (complex motion perception), and worsened it if only one motion direction was presented (simple movement perception). Our data suggest that area V5 is critically involved in complex motion perception and identification processes important for visuomotor coordination. The results also raise the possibility of the usefulness of tDCS in rehabilitation strategies for neurological patients with visuomotor disorders.
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Frontal eye field (FEF) neurons discharge in response to behaviorally relevant stimuli that are potential targets for saccades. Distinct visual and motor processes have been dissociated in the FEF of macaque monkeys, but little is known about the visual processing capacity of FEF in humans. We used double-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation [(d)TMS] to investigate the timing of target discrimination during visual conjunction search. We applied dual TMS pulses separated by 40 msec over the right FEF and vertex. These were applied in five timing conditions to sample separate time windows within the first 200 msec of visual processing. (d)TMS impaired search performance, reflected in reduced d′ scores. This effect was limited to a time window between 40 and 80 msec after search array onset. These parameters correspond with single-cell activity in FEF that predicts monkeys' behavioral reports on hit, miss, false alarm, and correct rejection trials. Our findings demonstrate a crucial early role for human FEF in visual target discrimination that is independent of saccade programming.
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The authors attempted to replicate prior group brain correlates of deception 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.
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DNA microarrays are widely used to study changes in gene expression in tumors, but such studies are typically system-specific and do not address the commonalities and variations between different types of tumor. Here we present an integrated analysis of 1,975 published microarrays spanning 22 tumor types. We describe expression profiles in different tumors in terms of the behavior of modules, sets of genes that act in concert to carry out a specific function. Using a simple unified analysis, we extract modules and characterize gene-expression profiles in tumors as a combination of activated and deactivated modules. Activation of some modules is specific to particular types of tumor; for example, a growth-inhibitory module is specifically repressed in acute lymphoblastic leukemias and may underlie the deregulated proliferation in these cancers. Other modules are shared across a diverse set of clinical conditions, suggestive of common tumor progression mechanisms. For example, the bone osteoblastic module spans a variety of tumor types and includes both secreted growth factors and their receptors. Our findings suggest that there is a single mechanism for both primary tumor proliferation and metastasis to bone. Our analysis presents multiple research directions for diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic studies.
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We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity when subjects were performing identical tasks in the context of either a task-set switch or a continuation of earlier performance. The context, i.e., switching or staying with the current task, influenced medial frontal cortical activation; the medial frontal cortex is transiently activated at the time that subjects switch from one way of performing a task to another. Two types of task-set-switching paradigms were investigated. In the response-switching (RS) paradigm, subjects switched between different rules for response selection and had to choose between competing responses. In the visual-switching (VS) paradigm, subjects switched between different rules for stimulus selection and had to choose between competing visual stimuli. The type of conflict, sensory (VS) or motor (RS), involved in switching was critical in determining medial frontal activation. Switching in the RS paradigm was associated with clear blood-oxygenation-level-dependent signal increases (“activations”) in three medial frontal areas: the rostral cingulate zone, the caudal cingulate zone, and the presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA). Switching in the VS task was associated with definite activation in just one medial frontal area, a region on the border between the pre-SMA and the SMA. Subsequent to the fMRI session, we used MRI-guided frameless stereotaxic procedures and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to test the importance of the medial frontal activations for task switching. Applying rTMS over the pre-SMA disrupted subsequent RS performance but only when it was applied in the context of a switch. This result shows, first, that the pre-SMA is essential for task switching and second that its essential role is transient and limited to just the time of behavioral switching. The results are consistent with a role for the pre-SMA in selecting between response sets at a superordinate level rather than in selecting individual responses. The effect of the rTMS was not simply due to the tactile and auditory artifacts associated with each pulse; rTMS over several control regions did not selectively disrupt switching. Applying rTMS over the SMA/pre-SMA area activated in the VS paradigm did not disrupt switching. This result, first, confirms the limited importance of the medial frontal cortex for sensory attentional switching. Second, the VS rTMS results suggest that just because an area is activated in two paradigms does not mean that it plays the same essentialrole in both cases.
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The guilty knowledge polygraph test (GKT; D. T. Lykken, 1959, 1960) is a psychophysiological method of identifying suspects with concealed information about a crime. A meta-analysis of 50 treatment groups drawn from 22 laboratory simulation studies (total N = 1,247) was conducted to provide a comprehensive estimate of GKT accuracy under controlled conditions. Electrodermal measures correctly identified 76% of participants with concealed knowledge and 83% of those without information. Informed participants were detected at rates significantly in excess of chance. with a mean weighted effect size of .57, Enactment of mock crimes increased the hit rate to 82%. The rates of false-positive error among noninformed treatment groups did not significantly exceed chance. Applications and research directions are discussed.
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Phonological rehearsal helps to keep selected information consciously in mind for further processing. This part of short-term storage takes place during the delay period of verbal working memory tasks and involves a frontoparietal network as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have shown. The involved cortical areas can be further investigated by interfering with the local information processing using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). On a single subject level, we identified predominantly left-sided premotor, prefrontal, and parietal areas active during the delay period of a verbal working memory task using event-related fMRI. In a pilot approach, TMS was neuronavigated to the individually active areas by using a stereotaxic device. Then, TMS was applied during the delay period of similar tasks as in fMRI. Error rates increased significantly upon stimulating left premotor cortex, but not upon parietal or prefrontal stimulation. The contribution of the premotor cortex to storage and rehearsal is discussed as an active top-down storage process within the frontoparietal network.
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The last decade has seen remarkable process in understanding ongoing psychological processes at the neurobiological level, progress that has been driven technologically by the spread of functional neuroimaging devices, especially magnetic resonance imaging, that have become the research tools of a theoretically sophisticated cognitive neuroscience. As this research turns to specification of the mental processes involved in interpersonal deception, the potential evidentiary use of material produced by devices for detecting deception, long stymied by the conceptual and legal limitations of the polygraph, must be re-examined. Although studies in this area are preliminary, and I conclude they have not yet satisfied the foundational requirements for the admissibility of scientific evidence, the potential for use - particularly as a devastating impeachment threat to encourage factual veracity - is a real one that the legal profession should seek to foster through structuring the correct incentives and rules for admissibility. In particular, neuroscience has articulated basic memory processes to a sufficient degree that contemporaneously neuroimaged witnesses would be unable to feign ignorance of a familiar item (or to claim knowledge of something unfamiliar). The brain implementation of actual lies and deceit more generally, is of greater complexity and variability. Nevertheless, the research project to elucidate them is conceptually sound, and the law cannot afford to stand apart from what may ultimately constitute profound progress in a fundamental problem of adjudication.
Article
The feasibility of using Event Related Brain Potentials (ERPs) in Interrogative Polygraphy (“Lie Detection”) was tested by examining the effectiveness of the Guilty Knowledge Test designed by Farwell and Donchin (1986, 1988). The subject is assigned an arbitrary task requiring discrimination between experimenter-designated targets and other, irrelevant stimuli. A group of diagnostic items (“probes”), which to the unwitting are indistinguishable from the irrelevant items, are embedded among the irrelevant. For subjects who possess “guilty knowledge” these probes are distinct from the irrelevants and are likely to elicit a P300, thus revealing their possessing the special knowledge that allows them to differentiate the probes from the irrelevants. We report two experiments in which this paradigm was tested. In Experiment 1, 20 subjects participated in one of two mock espionage scenarios and were tested for their knowledge of both scenarios. All stimuli consisted of short phrases presented for 300 ms each at an interstimulus interval of 1550 ms. A set of items were designated as “targets” and appeared on 17% of the trials. Probes related to the scenarios also appeared on 17% of the trials. The rest of the items were irrelevants. Subjects responded by pressing one switch following targets, and the other following irrelevants (and, of course, probes). ERPs were recorded from Fz, Cz, and Pz. As predicted, targets elicited large P300s in all subjects. Probes associated with a given scenario elicited a P300 in subjects who participated in that scenario. A bootstrapping method was used to assess the quality of the decision for each subject. The algorithm declared the decision indeterminate in 12.5% of the cases. In all other cases a decision was made. There were no false positives and no false negatives: whenever a determination was made it was accurate. The second experiment was virtually identical to the first, with identical results, except that this time 4 subjects were tested, each of which had a minor brush with the law. Subjects were tested to determine whether they possessed information on their own “crimes.” The results were as expected; the Guilty Knowledge Test determined correctly which subject possessed which information. The implications of these data both for the practice of Interrogative Polygraphy and the interpretation of the P300 are discussed.
Article
Magnetic coil (MC) stimulation percutaneously of human occipital cortex was tested on perception of 3 briefly presented, randomly generated alphabetical characters. When the visual stimulus-MC pulse interval was less than 40–60 msec, or more than 120–140 msec, letters were correctly reported; at test intervals of 80–100 msec, a blur or nothing was seen. Shifting the MC location in the transverse and rostro-caudal axes had effects consistent with the topographical representation in visual cortex, but incompatible with an effect on attention or suppression from an eyeblink. The MC pulse probably acts by eliciting IPSPs in visual stimulus.
Article
Magnetic coil (MC) stimulation percutaneously of human occipital cortex was tested on perception of 3 briefly presented, randomly generated alphabetical characters. When the visual stimulus-MC pulse interval was less than 40-60 msec, or more than 120-140 msec, letters were correctly reported; at test intervals of 80-100 msec, a blur or nothing was seen. Shifting the MC location in the transverse and rostro-caudal axes had effects consistent with the topographical representation in visual cortex, but incompatible with an effect on attention or suppression from an eyeblink. The MC pulse probably acts by eliciting IPSPs in visual cortex. The neural activity subserving letter recognition is probably transmitted from visual cortex within 140 msec of the visual stimulus.
Article
Single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a safe and useful tool for investigating various aspects of human neurophysiology, particularly corticospinal function, in health and disease. Repetitive TMS (rTMS), however, is a more powerful and potentially dangerous modality, capable of regionally blocking or facilitating cortical processes. Although there is evidence that rTMS is useful for treating clinical depression, and possibly other brain disorders, it had caused 7 known seizures by 1996 and could have other undesirable effects. In June 1996 a workshop was organized to review the available data on the safety of rTMS and to develop guidelines for its safe use. This article summarizes the workshop's deliberations. In addition to issues of risk and safety, it also addresses the principles and applications of rTMS, nomenclature, and potential therapeutic effects of rTMS. The guidelines for the use of rTMS, which are summarized in an appendix, cover the ethical issues, recommended limits on stimulation parameters, monitoring of subjects (both physiologically and neuropsychologically), expertise and function of the rTMS team, medical and psychosocial management of induced seizures, and contra-indications to rTMS.
Article
Fifteen years after its introduction by Anthony Barker, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) appears to be 'coming of age' in cognitive neuroscience and promises to reshape the way we investigate brain-behavior relations. Among the many methods now available for imaging the activity of the human brain, magnetic stimulation is the only technique that allows us to interfere actively with brain function. As illustrated by several experiments over the past couple of years, this property of TMS allows us to investigate the relationship between focal cortical activity and behavior, to trace the timing at which activity in a particular cortical region contributes to a given task, and to map the functional connectivity between brain regions.
Article
Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to compare activity in the human parietal cortex in two attention-switching paradigms. On each trial of the visual switching (VS) paradigm, subjects attended to one of two visual stimuli on the basis of either their color or shape. Trials were presented in blocks interleaved with cues instructing subjects to either continue attending to the currently relevant dimension or to switch to the other stimulus dimension. In the response switching (RS) paradigm, subjects made one of two manual responses to the single stimulus presented on each trial. The rules for stimulus-response mapping were reversed on different trials. Trials were presented in blocks interleaved with cues that instructed subjects to either switch stimulus-response mapping rules or to continue with the current rule. Brain activity at "switch" and "stay" events was compared. The results revealed distinct parietal areas concerned with visual attentional set shifts (VS) and visuomotor intentional set shifts (RS). In VS, activity was recorded in the lateral part of the intraparietal region. In RS, activity was recorded in the posterior medial intraparietal region and adjacent posterior superior and dorsomedial parietal cortex. The results also suggest that the basic functional organization of the intraparietal sulcus and surrounding regions is similar in both macaque and human species.
Article
Behavioural studies indicate that a newly acquired motor skill is rapidly consolidated from an initially unstable state to a more stable state, whereas neuroimaging studies demonstrate that the brain engages new regions for performance of the task as a result of this consolidation. However, it is not known where a new skill is retained and processed before it is firmly consolidated. Some early aspects of motor skill acquisition involve the primary motor cortex (M1), but the nature of that involvement is unclear. We tested the possibility that the human M1 is essential to early motor consolidation. We monitored changes in elementary motor behaviour while subjects practised fast finger movements that rapidly improved in movement acceleration and muscle force generation. Here we show that low-frequency, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation of M1 but not other brain areas specifically disrupted the retention of the behavioural improvement, but did not affect basal motor behaviour, task performance, motor learning by subsequent practice, or recall of the newly acquired motor skill. These findings indicate that the human M1 is specifically engaged during the early stage of motor consolidation.
Article
TheGuilty Knowledge Test (GKT) has been used extensively to model deception. An association between the brain evoked response potentials and lying on the GKT suggests that deception may be associated with changes in other measures of brain activity such as regional blood flow that could be anatomically localized with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Blood oxygenation level-dependent fMRI contrasts between deceptive and truthful responses were measured with a 4 Tesla scanner in 18 participants performing the GKT and analyzed using statistical parametric mapping. Increased activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and the left premotor, motor, and anterior parietal cortex was specifically associated with deceptive responses. The results indicate that: (a) cognitive differences between deception and truth have neural correlates detectable by fMRI, (b) inhibition of the truthful response may be a basic component of intentional deception, and (c) ACC and SFG are components of the basic neural circuitry for deception.
Article
We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity when subjects were performing identical tasks in the context of either a task-set switch or a continuation of earlier performance. The context, i.e., switching or staying with the current task, influenced medial frontal cortical activation; the medial frontal cortex is transiently activated at the time that subjects switch from one way of performing a task to another. Two types of task-set-switching paradigms were investigated. In the response-switching (RS) paradigm, subjects switched between different rules for response selection and had to choose between competing responses. In the visual-switching (VS) paradigm, subjects switched between different rules for stimulus selection and had to choose between competing visual stimuli. The type of conflict, sensory (VS) or motor (RS), involved in switching was critical in determining medial frontal activation. Switching in the RS paradigm was associated with clear blood-oxygenation-level-dependent signal increases ("activations") in three medial frontal areas: the rostral cingulate zone, the caudal cingulate zone, and the presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA). Switching in the VS task was associated with definite activation in just one medial frontal area, a region on the border between the pre-SMA and the SMA. Subsequent to the fMRI session, we used MRI-guided frameless stereotaxic procedures and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to test the importance of the medial frontal activations for task switching. Applying rTMS over the pre-SMA disrupted subsequent RS performance but only when it was applied in the context of a switch. This result shows, first, that the pre-SMA is essential for task switching and second that its essential role is transient and limited to just the time of behavioral switching. The results are consistent with a role for the pre-SMA in selecting between response sets at a superordinate level rather than in selecting individual responses. The effect of the rTMS was not simply due to the tactile and auditory artifacts associated with each pulse; rTMS over several control regions did not selectively disrupt switching. Applying rTMS over the SMA/pre-SMA area activated in the VS paradigm did not disrupt switching. This result, first, confirms the limited importance of the medial frontal cortex for sensory attentional switching. Second, the VS rTMS results suggest that just because an area is activated in two paradigms does not mean that it plays the same essential role in both cases.