Scientists have discovered a circuit in our brain that lets us predict when someone is about to lie to us. Humans have the ability to imagine what others are thinking and learn from their social habits, giving them clues as to when something is amiss.
The findings could also help explain why some people become paranoid. Scie-ntists from the Oxford University scanned volunteers’ brains while they chose one to two boxes to win points.
The participants were sent advice on which box to choose from a second player who was sometimes dishonest, reports the Daily Mail. When the volunteers suspected they were being lied to, activity levels in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, an area near the front of the brain, rose dramatically.
If a volunteer thought the player was telling the truth, the brain activity remained low. If their suspicions were proved wrong, the brain ac-tivity changed, suggesting the volunteers needed to ret-hink their opinion of the se-cond player. The activity was predicting how trustworthy the advice would be, then reacting to the results of that prediction. Failures of this system could explain why schizophrenics are often paranoid.