Deceptive behaviour involves complex neural processes involving the primary motor cortex. The dynamics of this motor cortex excitability prior to lying are still not well understood. We sought to examine whether corticospinal excitability can be used to suggest the presence of deliberately concealed information in a modified version of the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT). Participants pressed keys to either truthfully or deceitfully indicate their familiarity with a series of faces. Motor-evoked-potentials (MEPs) were recorded during response preparation to measure muscle-specific neural excitability. We hypothesised that MEPs would increase during the deceptive condition not only in the lie-telling finger but also in the suppressed truth-telling finger. We report a group-level increase in overall corticospinal excitability 300 ms following stimulus onset during the deceptive condition, without specific activation of the neural representation of the truth-telling finger. We discuss cognitive processes, particularly response conflict and/or automated responses to familiar stimuli, which may drive the observed non-specific increase of motor excitability in deception.

中文翻译：

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隐藏的视觉信息增加了运动皮质兴奋性

欺骗行为涉及涉及初级运动皮层的复杂神经过程。说谎之前这种运动皮层兴奋性的动力学仍不太清楚。我们试图检查是否可以使用皮质脊髓兴奋性来暗示在有罪知识测验（GKT）的修改版本中存在故意隐瞒的信息。参与者按下按键可以真实或欺骗性地表示他们对一系列面孔的熟悉程度。在反应准备过程中记录运动诱发电位（MEP），以测量肌肉特异性神经兴奋性。我们假设，在欺骗状态下，MEP不仅会在说谎的手指中，而且在被压制的真实的手指中也会增加。我们报告了在欺骗性条件下刺激发作后300毫秒总体皮质脊髓兴奋性的组水平增加，而没有真正激活真相手指的神经表示。我们讨论了认知过程，特别是对熟悉的刺激的反应冲突和/或自动反应，这可能会导致在欺骗中观察到的运动兴奋性非特异性增加。