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We all lie — once a day or so, according to most studies. But usually we tell little lies, like “your new haircut looks great!” And most of us can control when we lie or what we lie about. But some people lie repeatedly and compulsively, about things both big and small.

In 2005, a study published in The British Journal of Psychiatry provided the first evidence of structural differences in the brains of people with a history of persistent lying. The study was led by Yaling Yang, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of Southern California, and Adrian Raine, an expert on antisocial disorders who is now at University of Pennsylvania.

They expected to see some kind of deficit in the brains of these liars, Yang says. But surprisingly, the liars in their study actually had a surplus — specifically, they had more connections in the part of their brains responsible for complex thinking. (…) If you could look into this part of the brain, which sits right behind your forehead, you would see two kinds of matter: gray and white. (…) Roughly, gray matter is where the processing happens, and white matter connects different parts of the brain, helping us to bring different ideas together.

The liars in Yang’s study had on average 22 percent to 26 percent more white matter in their prefrontal cortex than both the normal and antisocial controls.

Yang speculates that the increase in white matter means that people who lie repeatedly and compulsively are better at making connections between thoughts that aren’t connected in reality — like, say, “me” and “fighter pilot.” Consequently, while some of us struggle to come up with reasons why we were late for work, or can’t go out with someone we don’t really like, Yang’s liars impulsively serve up a heaping helping of excuses and stories, and fast.

“By having more connections,” Yang says, “you can jump from one idea to another and you can come up with more random stories and ideas.” (…) “For normal people, from age 2 to age 10 there is a big jump in their white matter,” says Yang, “and actually that’s the same age that they develop the skill to lie.”

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