TELLING LIES

1
TELLING LIES?

• Catherine McGrath
• 4th Year General Medicine

2
(No Transcript)
3
Do parkinsonian patients have trouble telling
lies?The neurobiological basis of deceptive
behaviour

• N. Abe et al.,
• Brain 2009 132 13861395

4
Background

• Parkinsons disease not a new one.
• Adjectives used to describe the patients include
  industriousness, seriousness, inflexibility and
  honest.
• Test the hypothesis
• Honest because they are innately this way
• or
• There is some brain damage that prevents them
  from telling lies.

5
Regions of Brain involved in Executive Function
http//mindblog.dericbownds.net/2008/02/primer-on-
executive-function-in.html?
6
Experimental Design

• 32 idiopathic Parkinsons disease patients 20
  normal controls matched for age, sex and score on
  the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE).
• Standard neuropsychological examination for
  detecting explicit cognitive defects.
• Deception Scenario subjects had to tell lies to
  an actor about pictures they had seen.
• Resting metabolism in target areas assessed with
  18F-fluorodexygluocose (FDG).

7
Results
8
(No Transcript)
9
Conclusions

• Not everyone lies!!!

10
Limitations

• Subjects were instructed to lie that is not the
  same as in real life.
• The study explored just PD, it is not clear
  whether similar results might be obtained for
  other brain damaged patients.
• The PD patients had mild disease of short
  duration. It is not clear when the honesty
  streak kicks in.