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. 2017 Sep 21;7(1):12085.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-11754-4.

Functional neural networks of honesty and dishonesty in children: Evidence from graph theory analysis

Xiao Pan Ding  1 , Si Jia Wu  2 , Jiangang Liu  3 , Genyue Fu  4 , Kang Lee  5   6
Affiliations

Functional neural networks of honesty and dishonesty in children: Evidence from graph theory analysis

Xiao Pan Ding et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The present study examined how different brain regions interact with each other during spontaneous honest vs. dishonest communication. More specifically, we took a complex network approach based on the graph-theory to analyze neural response data when children are spontaneously engaged in honest or dishonest acts. Fifty-nine right-handed children between 7 and 12 years of age participated in the study. They lied or told the truth out of their own volition. We found that lying decreased both the global and local efficiencies of children's functional neural network. This finding, for the first time, suggests that lying disrupts the efficiency of children's cortical network functioning. Further, it suggests that the graph theory based network analysis is a viable approach to study the neural development of deception.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) An example of the guessing game. (B) The co-registration of 48 channels on Chinese children’s brain template (the frontal and parietal area). (C) The co-registration of 48 channels of brain template (the parietal and occipital area).
Figure 2
Figure 2
The steps for the functional brain networks analysis based on graph theory.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The network properties of the honest state and dishonest state. For global efficiency, the results showed that the main effects of states were significant, F (1,38) = 8.26, p = 0.007, η 2 = 0.18. The global efficiency of the dishonest state was significantly less than those of the honest state in liars, suggesting children’s network global efficiency was disrupted after they told the first lie.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(A) The AUC changes of the global efficiency of the honest state in liars as a function of age. (B) The AUC of the global efficiency of the dishonest state in liars increased significantly with age. (C) The AUC changes of the global efficiency of the first period in non-liars with age. (D) The AUC changes of the global efficiency of the second period in non-liars with age.
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