Over the course of human history, mankind has cured diseases, eradicated viruses, created antibiotics, and has solved countless medical mysteries. While we don’t have a cure for cancer, modern medicine has come a long way and we have a great understanding of how the human body works. Still, despite all the advanced medical computers and technology that we have at our disposal, one thing still remains somewhat of a mystery: the human brain. Scientists have a pretty good understanding of how the brain works, at least that’s what they think, however there are still many areas of the human brain that we simply do not understand. Things like how schizophrenia or other forms of mental illness arise, for example. We acknowledge their existence and how they impact individuals, but scientists still don’t really unserstand what causes them or how they work in our brains. However with a brand-new groundbreaking form of technology, scientists hope to get a better understanding, and this technology could even make mind control a reality. Technically it already has.
All of this starts with a man by the name of Dr. Karl Deisseroth. He is a psychiatrist and bioengineer that works at Stanford University and helps treat patients with mental illnesses. The current practices for identifying and treating a form of mental illness are very complex, as scientists are still trying to understand how they work. Typically patients will be treated with a variety of drugs and different prodcedures. Some drugs work for some people, while the same drugs do nothing for others. So why is that? They don’t really know. Outside of his duties as a psychiatrist, Dr. Deisseroth and a team of 42 scientists are working on a new form of technology that will be able to map the human brain, understand how it works, and find out what causes mental illnesses. This new technology could even allow for mind control, and the Pentagon has given Deisseroth and his fellow scientists at Stanford and Brown $15 million dollars in funding.
The procedure is called “optogenetics” and the technology and research behind it is not even five years old. Essentially they use green algae, fiber optics, lasers, and gene therapy to map the brain in ways that have never been seen before. So far they have only experimented on lab rats, but their findings are very fascinating. It all starts with placing special light-sensitive proteins from green algae inside specific cells and areas of the brain. Once the proteins are attached, scientists can then turn off or on these cells with yellow and blue lights that are generated by lasers through fiber optic networks that are connected to the subjects brain. While there are difficulties with physically attaching fiber optic wires to the brain, Deisseroth and his team are working on wireless systems. So far, they have been able to get a better understanding of how a rats brain works. They also found even more interesting results.
In their experiements, they were able to roughly control the minds of the rats. In one experiment, a pulse of lasers were fired into a specific part of the rats brain. They were able to turn a specific group of brain cells on, causing the rats to run in circles facing the left. In another experiment, they were able to wake up sleeping rats via a signal that was sent to their brains via the laser/algae method. In theory, they have attained a basic form of mind control. However this isn’t their intentions with this new technology. They are really applying optogenetics to gain a better understanding of the brains inner-workings and what causes mental illness. Down the road, scientist could create these special algae proteins to target specific parts of the brain.
So why is the Pentagon interested in this technology? Does the government want to implant ever citizen with mind controlling devices that will make us into compliment sheep? Probably not. Even if that were true, the technology needed to achieve this is still a long ways away. They just realize that the benefits of this technology are literally endless and they can be used to potentially treat every mental illness known to man. Maybe they could even turn off the brain cells that cause a mental illness, effectively curing it. Who knows? It seems that Dr. Deisseroth and his team have also pioneered a new breakthrough in modern medicine, as now over 600 labs are working on perfecting and understanding this new technology. Within time, testing on humans will begin and hopefully scientists will be able to understand the human brain and how it works in ways that have never been achieved before.
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