Results of the few studies done on pathological lying.

Although little has been written about pathological lying, one study found a prevalence of almost 1 in 1,000 repeat juvenile offenders.  The average age of onset is 16 years when the level of intelligence is average or above average.  30% of the subjects had a chaotic home environment, where a parent or other family member had a mental disturbance.  According to the findings, pathological lying occurs equally in men and women.  Excessive lying is a common symptom of severe mental illnesses.  People affected by anti social disorder lie for external personal profit in the forms of money, sex and power.  Pathological lying is strictly internal.  The difference between borderline personality disorder and pathological lying is BPD patients desperately try to cope with their feeling of abandonment, mistreatment, or rejection by making empty threats of suicide or false accusations of abandonment.  Pathological liars don't feel rejected, they have high levels of self-assurance that help them lie successfully.  Unlike those with histronic personality, these liars are more verbally dramatic than sexually flamboyant.  Narcissists think they have achieved perfection and are unempathetic to others.  If patients do not show anti-social behaviors, they often lie because they feel their life is not interesting.  Forty percent of cases reported abnormalities of the central nervous system.  They were epilepsy, abnormal EEG findings, ADHD, head trauma or central nervous system infections.  Some research suggests that certain people may have a "predisposition to lying".  The findings showed that pathological liars had increased white matter volumes in the orbit frontal, inferior frontal and middle frontal contices compared to control groups. Further research is needed on this subject to determine the cause.