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US scientists have developed a brain scan that they say can detect people harbouring racial prejudice. The researchers found surges of activity in a brain region known to control thoughts and behaviour in racially biased.

The research has already provoked controversy, with some experts arguing the study's conclusions are misplaced. At its most far-reaching, the study raises the possibility that the minds of people, including police recruits, could be screened for racist attitudes.

The scientist who led the research admits she was stunned when she saw the results, said Professor Jennifer Richeson, a neuroscientist at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire.

Prof Richeson said the brain activity arises because the volunteers are concentrating on not doing or saying anything offensive. This inner struggle tires the brain so much, she said, that prejudiced white people who interacted with black people would find it difficult to concentrate afterwards.

To conduct the research, her team first asked 30 white students to sit an implicit association test (IAT), in which they associated white or black names with positive or negative words.

The test is widely used as a measure of unconscious or automatic racial bias. The students were not told what the test was about. They then briefly met a black or white person before being asked to complete a difficult mental task.

Two weeks later the same students were asked to help in an unrelated experiment, in which they were handed pictures of the faces of black or white people while having their brains scanned. The scientists found a strong link between a volunteer's IAT score and activity in a region of their brain called the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

The research marks an increasing trend in neuroscience of using brain imaging equipment to study social issues and even attempt to predict behaviour. But such work remains controversial, because it is very difficult to pin down exactly what the images reveal.