The Hindu : Front Page : ‘Stop using brain mapping for investigation and as evidence’

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Saturday, Sep 06, 2008
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‘Stop using brain mapping for investigation and as evidence’

Raghava M.

Several factors come in the way of a dependable and conclusive outcome: panel

— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

A February 2008 file picture of terror suspects being brought to the Forensic Science Laboratory in Bangalore.

BANGALORE: An expert committee studying the efficacy of brain mapping criminal suspects has concluded that it is unscientific and should be discontinued as an investigative tool and as evidence in courts.

The six-member committee headed by National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) Director D. Nagaraj said there was a need to thoroughly examine the procedure and bring it up to established standards.

In its findings, the committee said there were several factors that came in the way of a dependable and conclusive outcome. For instance, body temperature, heart rate and menstrual cycle, induced factors such as exercise, fatigue, drugs and alcohol and constitutional factors such as age, intelligence, gender and personality of the individual all played a role which needed to be taken into account, something the existing method does not.

Error rates

For use as a forensic tool, a procedure needed to have established error rates. But brain mapping as done in the forensic science laboratories (FSL) in Bangalore and a variation called brain electrical oscillation signature (BEOS) profiling in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, had not worked on this factor, the committee said.

Besides Mr. Nagaraj, the committee comprised Narayanan Srinivasan, Senior Faculty, Center for Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, University of Allahabad; Narayanan Dutt, Professor, Department of ECE, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; N. Pradhan, Professor and head of the Department of Psychopharmacology, NIMHANS; Venkatasubramanian, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, NIMHANS; and M.S. Rao, Director and Chief Forensic Scientist, Directorate of Forensic Science, New Delhi.

In a typical criminal investigation, suspects first undergo a lie detection test followed by brain mapping and narco-analysis.

The team began its study in May 2007 at the request of the Directorate of Forensic Sciences of Ministry of Home Affairs to review and scrutinise brain mapping/ BEOS profiling/ brain fingerprinting — the brain electrophysiology techniques used “extensively in high profile cases”.

The committee asked the FSLs in Bangalore, Gandhinagar and Mumbai to submit their reports on brain mapping and BEOS profiling.

The committee also asked for presentations from Axxonet Solutions and Alliance Biomedica — the manufacturers/suppliers of related equipment to Gandhinagar and Bangalore FSLs.

Individual sets of questionnaires were sent to the two FSLs and the equipment suppliers.

The committee members also visited the two FSL centres. The committee, which submitted its 40-page report in May 2008, expressed doubts over what in technical parlance is called P300 analysis.

It listed out the deficiencies in this method of analysis and pointed out the lacuna in this procedure.

As for the procedure followed by FSL, Gandhinagar, the committee said that the concept on which it was based did not have the support of the scientific community as there were several pitfalls.

In its conclusion, it said the review “suggests sub-optimal scientific basis for them to be used as evidence in court of law. Hence, they cannot be used as evidence in the court of law”.

Among other things, the study recommended that rigorous research needed to be done in the area of cognitive processes.

It said that the relevance of these procedures for an Indian setting (for example, the influence of various languages) needed to be established.

It called for recording procedures to satisfy optimal standards.

The experiments needed to be carried out in standardised laboratories satisfying established guidelines, it added.

The committee said that operational procedures needed to be uniform across various laboratories, and the explicit criteria for interpretation and report need to be established with valid scientific basis.

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