With 15 faculty members at Penn State and a major grant from the NSF's Partnership for International Research and Education, the Center for Language Science is using fMRI and other tools to fathom the bilingual brain at work.

There is evidence that brain imaging technology is being used to interrogate suspected terrorists despite concerns that it may not be reliable, and that it might inadvertently promote abuse of detainees, according to a Penn State researcher. He says the risk that such technology could license further abuse of detainees remains ever present, given President Bush's March 8 veto of legislation that would have prohibited the CIA from conducting aggressive interrogations.