In addition to being the way to a man's heart, the stomach may also be the key to see if a person is lying or telling the truth according to the results of a new study led by researchers at the University of Texas.
According to the report, measuring changes in a person's stomach is actually a more accurate way of spotting lies than a polygraph test.
Polygraphs measure changes in heart rate and sweating to determine when a subject is lying. However, the gastrointestinal tract is also very sensitive to stress and by adding it to polygraph tests, the accuracy of the tests can be increased above today's 90 percent.
Researchers used a test called an electrogastrogram (EGG) which records the electrical signals sent to the muscles of the stomach. When subjects lied, there was a marked decrease in the amount of normal gastric 'slow waves' measured by the EGG.
The results of the study were given at the recent meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in Honolulu.
'The addition of the EGG to standard polygraph methods has clear value in improving the accuracy of current lie detectors,' explained Dr. Pankaj Pasricha in a statement. 'The communication between the big brain and the little brain in the stomach can be complex and merits further study.'
