Aspies For Freedom

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Liars' brains 'are not the same'
Thursday, 29 September 2005

Habitual liars' brains differ from those of honest people, a study says.

A University of Southern California team studied 49 people and found those known to be pathological liars had up to 26% more white matter than others.

White matter transmits information and grey matter processes it. Having more white matter in the prefrontal cortex may aid lying, the researchers said.

But the British Journal of Psychiatry said there were likely to be more differences in the brains of liars.


Manipulative behaviour

Participants were volunteers drawn from five temporary employment agencies in Los Angeles.

Three separate groups were studied.

The first consisted of 12 men and women with a history of being pathological liars; the second was 21 people who did not have a history of lying or anti-social behaviour.

The third group consisted of 16 people with anti-social personality disorder but no history of pathological lying. They were studied to see if they showed the same brain make-up as liars.

The researchers drew up a list of criteria for lying, cheating and deceiving, including habits such as conning people or behaving manipulatively, and telling lies in order to obtain sickness benefits.

They also assessed how much grey and white matter people had in the prefrontal cortex areas of their brains, using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Liars were found to have between 22 and 26% more white matter than either those with no history of lying or those in the anti-social group.


Childhood

The findings could not be explained by differences in age, ethnicity, IQ, head injury or substance misuse.

This is the first study to show a brain difference in people who lie, cheat and manipulate others, the researchers said.

They said the study could help research into areas such as people who feign illness.

The findings are in line with previous studies which showed children with autism are less capable of lying than other children.

Brain neurodevelopmental studies of autism show people with the condition have more grey matter than white matter - the opposite pattern to the liars in this study.

The researchers say the link between white matter and a deceitful personality could be that white matter provides a person with the cognitive capacity to lie.

Writing in the British Journal of Psychiatry, the research team led by Dr Yaling Yang, say: "To our knowledge, this is the first study to show a brain abnormality in people who lie, cheat and manipulate others.

"The results further implicate the prefrontal cortex as an important - but not sole - component in the neural circuitry underlying lying, and provide an initial neurological correlate of a deceitful personality."

They add: "Further studies are required to examine changes in brain anatomy during the critical neurodevelopmental period in childhood, alongside changes in lying ability, to test further our preliminary hypothesis on the link between prefrontal white matter and lying."

Dr Cosmo Hallstrom, a consultant psychiatrist in London, said: "The issue is always how much of our behaviour is under voluntary control and how much is innate.

"The finding of brain abnormalities lends weight to the idea that a strong component of such difficulties may well be beyond voluntary control at least in part."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4293520.stm

I s'pose this white matter (which in our case we do not have) is something like the fat which rises to the top of a cesspit, just as liars rise to positions of leadership in NT society!

Down with Judge Rottenburg! Down with Applied Behavioural Doo-Dah! Down with Essence of Pig's Trotters!

Stella

PS The Heavy Metal   :idea: album by Chelation and the Curebies - "Mercury in my Blood" - is still topping the NT charts!

I find the idea that pathological lying has a biological basis to be very believable, due to my own observations. I know a child who often tells the most ridiculous lies. This child is not related to anyone in our family. I often reply that "I find that hard to believe", but the kid just keeps on making up bull#$%* stories, and also likes to tell unflattering stories about other people which could plausibly be true. One of my own kids sometimes gets sucked in by these stories, though I do try to warn them. The interesting thing is that this child has a second-degree adult relative who is recognised as having some kind of compulsive lying disorder. Another interesting thing about the family is that lifelong overweight problems seem to run in the family too.

So do these people simply lie because they are more able to? I'm not sure. This child is still not that competant as a liar, if I find them implausible. If an adult has a recognised lying psychological issue, then they have been "caught out", so how good a liar are they really? Is there something about the white matter that motivates lying rather than facilitates lying? Do these people really have some kind of compulsion to explore and tinker about with the minds of other people rather than a superior ability to get away with fibbing?

Great so now we will forced to submit to hand a brain scan with our criminal record check, driver's record, personality testing score along with our applications for work.  

Does not nurture has anything to do with lying.  Most 6 and 7 yr old children will test out their lying abilities.  They know lying is wrong, they just want to see if they can use it to get what they want.   Some (bad) parents will not punish their children for lying or stealing, only for getting caught.

I believe children possibly lie for different reasons, so the idea that lying is something that all kids do, and is easily stopped by punishment, is not one that I find convincing. A lot of kids lie for practical reasons, they think they can get what they want from lying, by manipulating the behaviour of others or to evade punishment for their other deviant acts "I didn't do it Dad!". The kid that I was discussing in my previous post did not clearly have anything to gain from their lies, except perhaps attention. I think some people possibly lie because they have some kind of compulsion to test the way other people's minds and work by checking their reactions to lies and other things that they say. I am sceptical that this kind of compulsive behaviour can be easily altered by punishment. I'm sure we have all met unpleasant people who get some kind of amusement from telling other adults implausible stories to confirm their belief that the other person is stupid.

Is it possible that the many NTs who seem deaf to the real needs of ASD people are unable to hear us because of such a build-up of this white matter in the brain that it begins to seep out through the ears, like wax?  :idea:

Stella

Well, sorta!   :smile:  But, not exactly.

Just to be clear on what white matter is:

White matter is one of the two main solid components of the central nervous system [the other being grey matter].

It forms the bulk of the deep parts of the brain and the superficial parts of the spinal cord. Aggregates of grey matter, such as the basal ganglia (thalamus, caudate nucleus, putamen, globus pallidus, subthalamic nucleus, nucleus accumbens), brain stem nuclei (red nucleus, substantia nigra, cranial nerve nuclei) are spread within the cerebral white matter....

Generally, white matter can be understood as the parts of the brain and spinal cord responsible for information transmission; whereas, grey matter is mainly responsible for information processing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_matter

Also, we Aspies and autists do have white matter in our brains -- just less of it, on average, than NTs do.

thank you for the explanation of grey and white matter in the brain.

So then, is my problem a lack of routing control of information in my brain.  I often find that when I am trying to remember a word or something, sometimes the answer is lost for a while and I might remember some hours or days later.

So it is an insult to tell someone he or she has a high amount of white brain matter - and probably without them knowing it  :lol:  In some way I like the idea  :grin:

Sibylle

Again the cult of normalcy is thrashing its slimy tendrils around in a panic. I am sure most on the autistic spectrum do not want their brain architecture 'fixed' since it confers advantages as well as disadvantages. Would NTs want their brains fixed? I don't think so.

   As Collen Clements notes 'although our cultures are willing to agree that some people exhibit superior physical abilities, they are reluctant to do that for intelligence' (I do not agree with all of her article Aspergers: making intelligence a disease). So, our ratio of grey to white matter is pathologised and we would presumably be merely in the grip of a delusion if we objected to having our special abilities and unique ways of experiencing the world removed by what is, in fact, just a species of more sophisticated lobotomy.  'Who cares if I can't concentrate  for vastly extended periods of time? What matter that my special talents 'x' have gone? It doesn't matter that the potentialy unique insights I could have offered the world have been deposited in some redundant suggestion box in an alternative reality: I can chat about anything now; I can dress, lie, and cheat with the best of them now!

   As far as underconnectivity theory goes, I have read it being explained  with the 'team of football players' analogy, with AS having a couple of brilliant players not playing properly with the rest of the average players, whilst the NT team of average players is playing 'properly' as a team. They always seem to conclude that the brain's parts should be made to work in the 'normal way' (or else!).


   We, however, can extend this analogy to compensate for NTs inability to see the wider picture/empathise with those on the spectrum. Imagine the world/society is the brain- surely it needs to integrate and do 'one twos' with those on the spectrum, passing the ball about in order to reach a common goal?

   Curing or eliminating potentially gifted and valuable members of society is the intellectual variant of what is happening to the environment- crapping in your own fridge.

Biol Psychiatry. 2005 Aug 31; [Epub ahead of print]

Cortical Gray and White Brain Tissue Volume in Adolescents and Adults with Autism.
Hazlett HC, Poe MD, Gerig G, Smith RG, Piven J.

Department of Psychiatry and the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center (HCH, RGS, JP); School of Medicine; the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center (MDP); Departments of Psychiatry and Computer Science (GG), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

BACKGROUND: A number of studies have found brain enlargement in autism, but there is disagreement as to whether this enlargement is limited to early development or continues into adulthood. In this study, cortical gray and white tissue volumes were examined in a sample of adolescents and adults with autism who had demonstrated total brain enlargement in a previous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study. METHODS: An automated tissue segmentation program was applied to structural MRI scans to obtain volumes of gray, white, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) tissue on a sample of adolescent and adult males ages 13-29 with autism (n = 23) and controls (n = 15). Regional differences for brain lobes and brain hemispheres were also examined. RESULTS: Significant enlargement in gray matter volume was found for the individuals with autism, with a disproportionate increase in left-sided gray matter volume. Lobe volume enlargements were detected for frontal and temporal, but not parietal or occipital lobes, in the subjects with autism. Age and nonverbal IQ effects on tissue volume were also observed. CONCLUSIONS: These findings give evidence for left-lateralized gray tissue enlargement in adolescents and adults with autism, and demonstrate a regional pattern of cortical lobe volumes underlying this effect.

PMID: 16139816