Exploring the Functional Brain Network of Deception in Source-Level EEG via Partial Mutual Information

In this study, partial mutual information at the source level was used to construct brain functional networks in order to examine differences in brain functions between lying and honest responses. The study used independent component analysis and clustering methods to computationally generate source signals from EEG signals recorded from subjects who were lying and those who were being honest. Partial mutual information was calculated between regions of interest (ROIs), and used to construct a functional brain network with ROIs as nodes and partial mutual information values as connections between them. The partial mutual information connections that showed significant differences between the two groups of people were selected as the feature set and classified using a functional connectivity network (FCN) classifier, resulting in an accuracy of 88.5%. Analysis of the brain networks of the lying and honest groups showed that, in the lying state, there was increased informational exchange between the frontal lobe and temporal lobe, and the language motor center of the frontal lobe exchanged more information with other brain regions, suggesting increased working and episodic memory load and the mobilization of more cognitive resources.