Fmri

fMRI Controversy in the Court

On May 5th of 2010, a case in Brooklyn was raised on the grounds of the controversy that juries were responsible for detecting lies and not the machines. During that time, various questions were raised regarding the reliability of fMRI brain scans as evidence in a court room trial. It is still unclear whether fMRIs are efficient as lie detectors or not but “the advanced magnetic scanning technology has been reported to determine whether someone is lying with around 90% accuracy by measuring blood flow in different parts of the brain” (Saenz, 2010).

A Tennessee psychologist was blamed for cheating and defrauding his insurance company to get more money, though his attorneys tried to prove that he was not involved in the embezzlement. According to the tests made by a company named ‘Cephos’, the results on the first scan indicated that he was lying but the second test proved he was clean. Later, the Tennessee court rejected the fMRI results as the procedure was not practicable (Harris, 2010).

DNA analysis and fMRI are two different methods of testing used in the courtroom. DNA testing was approved long ago though it suffered from criticisms in the previous days. There is no doubt that fMRI is following a similar path. The fMRI maps areas of the brain which helps to find out parts of the brain responsible for lying and deception, which would make it possible to conduct lie detection tests on people (Ladd & Berry, 2013). Its performance is based on the assumption that every brain works in a similar manner, which is one of its major drawbacks (Harris, 2010).

Doctors are able to view the mindset of the people and determine their thoughts with the help of fMRI. Moreover, doctors can understand how our brain works and diagnose diseases of the brain (Watson, 2008). A certain area of the brain can be recognized which is seen as the difference between the two fMRI scans. It might then be possible to identify the area of brain responsible...