Narcoanalysis and Brain Fingerprinting are Potemkin Science
Prof Dr P Chandra Sekharan MA MSc PhD BL DEL FInstP(Lond) FFSc FAFSc FISC DABFE CPhys Fellow, American College of Forensic Examiners President, Forensics Science Society of India
The recent investigative procedure of the Maharashtra Police in Mumbai attacks without going in for narco or brain tests should indeed set an example to others. The finding of the Karnataka Police as reported in ‘The Hindu’ Bangalore dated December 11, 2008 that ‘Dr. Malini’s way of conducting narcoanalysis was unprofessional’ should also be an eye opener for the police of other States
Narcoanalysis is not used in UK, US, Continent of Europe, Australia and other modern democracies with a legal system that does not permit narcoanalysis. In India even the Railway Minister is demanding narcoanalysis on MPs, and people want to know why the CBI did not conduct narcoanalysis on Dr Talwar. In 2006, Karnataka Congress Leader H. Viswanath suggested that Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and his colleagues undergo narcoanalysis in the Chennamma Trust bribery case. I am afraid that soon a trend may emerge that politicians may use narcoanalysis extensively to settle scores with their opponents. And police may forget their pursuit of scientific methods. Thanks to the media explosion about Narco and brain tests, people don’t believe the police. They want doctors, psychologists or anyone else in white apron and even police dogs to make up for the credibility shortfall. Let Indian Police do introspection of what they are doing now.
Sudhanshu Sarangi an Indian top cop, now as a British Chevening scholar specializing in Investigative Psychology in Liverpool University and researching for a PhD in Forensic Psychology under Professor David Canter, writes to his colleagues in Police in India through ‘IndiaTopCop@yahoogroups.com’ that “They need to get basic policing right. They should learn to preserve crime scene, search scenes of crime properly, interview witnesses properly, learn to work in teams, learn to maintain good documentation for court purposes and finally, they should use proven techniques like DNA. They need more resources to do these basic things right and they need to practise a high degree of ethical standard to improve their credibility”.
He wants the Indian Police to be aware of what psychologists call ‘heuristics” and in this case ’confirmation bias’. He writes “imagine going to a psychologist with a suspect and the psychologist administers a few tests and tells you that ‘the individual is aggressive, violent, manipulative, deceptive etc.’ Will you then be more inclined to search for corroborating evidence or imagine situations that may establish innocence?”
Research in U.K in Liverpool Centre has shown that police officers often draw meaning very different from what psychologists intended while preparing the reports. Mr. Sarangi says “We are, in fact, required to explain to the police officers the limitations of what we have said to make sure that they don`t draw inferences that we had not intended. Whenever I have worked with the British police I have asked the I.O to personally meet me and discuss the report because of my fear that the officer may assume conclusions that are beyond the scope of current scientific knowledge”.
The psychologist who found an individual ‘aggressive etc.’ should also explain the purpose for which such a conclusion can be made, what is the margin of error etc. They should also write down any caveat (a warning or cautionary statement) as every psychologist is mandatorily required to do. These are issues around ethics that our doctors, psychologists engineers, often don`t adhere to. The reporting format also does not mention critical issues like a) competence b) caveats and c) scope of peer review or reference to other experts for a second opinion”.
In the ‘four- in- one’ package offered in Bangalore FSL all the four tests are conducted one after the other by the same psychologist. The primitive Narcotest is indeed ‘Potemkin science’ because it is not a proven scientific test. Consider for example the test to detect chromium in a sample. Any number of times you repeat the test anywhere in the world, you get the same result. About the narco test, the Bangalore narco-tester admits that the testee undergoes the test three times [The Week, September 21, 2008]. According to him, in the first trial, the testee would not disclose anything, but by reducing the drug concentration in subsequent trials the testee breaks down. He says that the drug finds its way in subsequent trials as if it accumulates or has different function each time. Any drug that is reliable must produce replicable results – same results every time it is administered. The narcotest was conducted five times within a span of 20 days on a suspect (Fahad Hai). Which one of the revelations recorded in the five CDs will be helpful to the police? The replies of Dr. Mohan in the above interview do expose that test is being doctored.
The narco-testers admit that the CDs are given to the police only after editing. Where is then the veracity of the test? The biggest joke is the claim of the Bangalore Narco-testers that they achieve high rate of success 94 to97 %! Success is, in terms of what? Success is achieved in torturing 94 to 97 percent of people! Would this mean that the interrogation of the psychologist, based on the police briefing positively confirms the ‘police story’ in 94 to 97 % of the cases and negates it in 3 to 6 % cases. The FSL director says ‘he will not call it interrogation, but some kind of a drug induced interview’. Are such results confirming police story considered success? This is something like a burglar calculating success rate for his burglaries.
Dr. V.J. Chinnasamy MB FRCP (C), general psychiatrist in Canada, a Fellow of the McMaster University writes “The use of narcoanalysis has fallen out of favour as a clinical technique and there has been almost no mention of it in the European or North American literature for decades. I am surprised to see that some courts in India are using it as if it is scientifically valid, for which there is no evidence”.
“If narcoanalysis was in fact practiced in a remote centre, it could be to glean history in an otherwise inhibited patient. The information would be treated with scepticism. It is a different story to use it as evidence to incriminate an individual without any support of validity”.
Dr. Chinnasamy further says “Surely a person who is disinhibited by Na [Sodium] Pentathol may talk, whether he tells the truth, his fears, his goals or a mish-mash of some or all of the above is anybody’s guess. A student who is anxious about upcoming exams may dream of having failed the exam. The student may speak of this fear (failure) under Na penathol. One cannot take this literally and decide that the student has indeed failed or is going to fail. Many anaesthetists would be able to relate how patients, before they ‘go under’ talk some facts and some nonsense all mixed together”.
Dr.Chinnasamy further adds “There cannot be much difference in the disinhibited state induced by Na Pentathol or alcohol for that matter. Typically drunks talk a lot and this is not taken seriously. Pentathol is quick, reversible and relatively safe and therefore it is used in anaesthesia. However, it can cause laryngeal spasm, confusional states, states of agitation, anaphylaxis, etc. There is also the question of informed consent and the rights of the accused”.
No big argument is necessary to discard brain fingerprinting also as a Potemkin science. Our Indian Johnnies, be they the Bangalore FSL group who designate their technique as ‘brain-mapping’ or the Gujarat FSL group who label their technique with an impressive terminology ‘brain electrical oscillation signature profiling’, make use of only the EEG machine to detect the scalp electrical signal output. The signal detected by the scalp electrode is predominated by the excitatory and inhibitory post synaptic potentials on dendrites and neuronal cell bodies, not the deeper axon action potentials.
Thus EEG is a nonspecific indicator of cerebral function. Any pathophysiological insult to the central nervous system can result in alterations in electrophysiology. Thus with few exceptions does little in providing a precise diagnosis. EEG abnormalities are pronounced with acute injuries of the outer cortex. Disorders affecting deep brain structures or resulting in a chronic indolent loss of neurons may show little to no EE changes.
A listener who is sitting outside a football stadium cannot see the activity inside but may make some reasonable guesses about the course of the game based on hearing the fluctuating roar of the crowd. This vantage point does not allow the listener to understand fully the details of the game or what individual conversations may be taking place between the coach and players.
Similarly scalp electrode can detect the fluctuating tonic activity of millions of neurons allowing the electroencephalographer to make some broad assumptions about the functioning of the brain. However this technique is not sensitive to the exquisite detail that is needed to appreciate neural activity associated with cognitive processes or mood states. While this is the correct and latest assessment of EEG even in medical diagnosis, how can our non-medical psychologists claim to read reactions of the brain to pinpoint the guilty person? Another major discrepancy in brain fingerprinting is that the scalp electrode cannot make any distinction between the signals emanated from the brain of the perpetrator and those who have knowledge about the crime’s brain.
It is also significant to note that a Committee of neuroscientific experts headed by Prof D. Nagaraja, the Vice Chancellor of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore came out with a clear finding that
1) Scientific basis for brain fingerprinting as well as the ‘Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature’ is sub-optimal
2) Peer reviewed publication with relevance to normative data is none
3) Potential error rate is unknown
4) Procedural standards need optimization
5) Scientific acceptance is not unequivocal
The police in India should therefore give a rethinking about their habit of running after the Potemkin techniques and especially the Karnataka police should re-examine the proposal for establishing Narcotest centres and brain labs all over the State causing huge expenditure on government exchequer.