BRITAIN: Pathological liars may have structural abnormalities in their brains, a new study suggests. Dr Adrian Raine and Yaling Yang of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and colleagues found that individuals who habitually lied and cheated had less grey matter and more white matter in their prefrontal cortex than normal people. They report their findings in the British Journal of Psychiatry.
Because grey matter consists of brain cells, while white matter forms the "wiring" or connections between these cells, pathological liars may have more capacity to lie and fewer moral restraints, the authors suggest. "They've got the equipment to lie, and they don't have the disinhibition that the rest of us have in telling the big whoppers," Dr Raine said.
While small children aren't good liars, by the age of 10 - by which time a burst in white matter volume has occurred - they become much more proficient in telling falsehoods, the report found.