There’s no shortage of opinions that defy common sense and millennia of civilizational orthodoxy. Millions of Americans today believe a person should be absolved of admittedly murdering her children, that men can be women, and that punctuality is a form of white supremacy, among other perspectives. It’s natural to ask how anyone could possibly believe such things. 

When we tell a lie, to ourselves or others, the brain has measurable responses, and advances in neurological research are revealing them. Dr. Sydney Ceruto, who holds a doctorate in behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, has explored the science of lying and what it does to the brain. Her August analysis, Why Your Brain Makes You Lie: The Neuroscience of Deception, unpacks the complexities of what the brain does when we lie and how lying can affect our actions. 

For starters, the brain has to work harder when we lie. Lying prompts the prefrontal cortex to suppress honesty, build the false narrative, monitor internal consistency surrounding the lie, and predict how others might react. According to Ceruto, lying demands the brain engage in “four parallel computations where truth-telling requires one.” That’s why the details of the truth are easier to remember than the details of a lie. 

Then there’s the amygdala, which plays a part in calculating the risk of lying and can trigger physiological responses........

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