posted 05-02-2002 04:12 PM            

Scientists use implanted electrodes to control rats' movements from afar
Wed May 1, 4:05 PM ET

By RICK CALLAHAN, Associated Press Writer

INDIANAPOLIS - By implanting electrodes in rats' brains, scientists have created remote-controlled rodents they can command to turn left or right, climb trees and navigate piles of rubble — and maybe someday, with the rats outfitted with tiny video cameras, use to search for disaster survivors.

"If you have a collapsed building and there are people under the rubble, there's no robot that exists now that would be capable of going down into such a difficult terrain and finding those people, but a rat would be able to do that," said John Chapin, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at the State University of New York in Brooklyn.

The lab animals aren't exactly robot rats. They had to be trained to carry out the commands.

Chapin's team fitted five rats with electrodes and power-pack backpacks. When signaled by a laptop computer, the electrodes stimulated the rodents' brains and cued them to scurry in the desired direction, then rewarded them by stimulating a pleasure center in the brain.

The rats' movements could be controlled up to 1,640 feet (492 meters) away, the length of more than five football fields.

The findings appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Other researchers said the work is interesting but is an engineering feat, not an advance in animal neuroscience.

Randy Gallistel, a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Rutgers University, said it's basically the same thing, with a twist, that scientists found they could do almost 50 years ago by stimulating the reward-sensing area of a rat's brain.

"Without the gee-whizzery, without the remote-control and so on, that this kind of thing was possible has been obvious for decades," he said.

The experiments used three implanted electrodes — one in the brain region that senses reward or pleasure, and one each in areas that process signals from the rat's left and right whisker bundles.

Chapin's team trained the rats in a maze by signaling the left and right whisker-sensing regions. When a rat turned in the correct direction, its reward-sensing region was stimulated.

Activating only the reward region caused the rodents to move forward, the team found.

After training, the rats were tested in a variety of environments and remotely guided through pipes and across elevated runways. They were compelled to climb trees and ladders and to jump from varying heights.

The rodents could even be commanded to venture into brightly lit, open areas — environments they normally would avoid.

Howard Eichenbaum, a professor of psychology at Boston University, said the research, while not a major advance, is "clever" and holds the promise of using animals as humans' "eyes" or as couriers to reach trapped victims.

Aside from the technological challenges, he said there may be ethical concerns about turning animals into "intelligent robots" serving humans.

"It's one thing to see a rat running around like this, people don't get too emotional about that, but as soon as you get into dogs or work animals, people start getting real excited," he said.

Chapin's team has tested tiny video cameras strapped to wired rats to see whether they might be used to transmit images and sounds of people trapped inside ruins. But Chapin said the camera needs to be refined to compensate for the rodents' jerky movements, and the rats' backpack miniaturized to implant it beneath their skin.

The potential of using such implantable electrodes to control humans — which a Tulane University researcher tried during the 1960s, with unclear results — is something Chapin said he opposes so strongly he believes it should be illegal.

Kate Rears, a policy analyst at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, said technological advances mean human-control technology can no longer be dismissed as far-fetched.

posted 05-08-2002 06:59 PM            

12-6-1

Actual 1974 Congressional Testimony of Dr. Jose Delgado -

"We need a program of PSYCHOSURGERY for POLITICAL CONTROL of our society. The purpose is PHISICAL CONTROL OF THE MIND. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be SURGICALLY MUTILATED.

"The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective.

"Man does NOT HAVE THE RIGHT to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must ELECTRICALLY CONTROL THE BRAIN. Some day armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain."

Dr. Jose M.R. Delgado Director of Neuropsychiatry Yale University Medical School Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118 February 24, 1974

(Author of "PHYSICAL CONTROL OF THE MIND" 1969)

The following article was originally published in the 36th-year edition of the Finnish-language journal, SPEKULA (3rd Quarter, 1999). SPEKULA is a publication of Northern Finland medical students and doctors of Oulu University OLK (OULUN LAAKETIETEELLINEN KILTA).

MICROCHIP IMPLANTS, MINDCONTROL AND CYBERNETICS By Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde, MD Former Chief Medical Officer of Finland

In 1948 Norbert Weiner published a book, CYBERNETICS, defined as a neurological communication and control theory already in use in small circles at that time. Yoneji Masuda, "Father of Information Society," stated his concern in 1980 that our liberty is threatened Orwellian-style by cybernetic technology totally unknown to most people. This technology links the brains of people via implanted microchips to satellites controlled by ground-based super-computers.

The first brain implants were surgically inserted in 1874 in the state of Ohio, U.S.A., and also in Stockholm, Sweden. Brain electrodes were inserted into the skulls of babies in 1946 without the knowledge of their parents. In the 50's and 60's, electrical implants were inserted into the brains of animals and humans, especially in the U.S., during research into behavior modification, and brain and body functioning. Mind control (MC) methods were used in attempt to change human behavior and attitudes. Influencing brain functions became an important goal of military and intelligence services.

Thirty years ago brain implants showed up in xrays the size of one centimeter. Subsequent implants shrunk to the size of a grain of rice. They were made of silicon, later still of gallium arsenide. Today they are small enough to be inserted into the neck or back, and also intraven-ously in different parts of the body during surgical operations, with or without the consent of the subject. It is now almost impossible to detect or remove them.

It is technically possible for every newborn to be injected with a micro-chip, which could then function to identify the person for the rest of his or her life. Such plans are secretly being discussed in the U.S. without any public airing of the privacy issues involved. In Sweden, Prime Minister Olof Palme gave permission in 1973 to implant prisoners, and Data Inspection's ex-Director General Jan Freese revealed that nursing-home patients were implanted in the mid- 1980's. The technology is revealed in the 1972:47 Swedish state report, STATENS OFFICIELLA UTRADNINGER (SOU). Implanted human beings can be followed anywhere. Their brain functions can then be remotely monitored by supercomputers and even altered through the changing of frequencies. Guinea-pigs in secret experiments have in-cluded prisoners, soldiers, mental patients, handicapped children, deaf and blind people, homosexuals, single women, the elderly, school children and any group of people considered "marginal" by the elite experimenters. The published experiences of prisoners in Utah State Prison, for example, are shocking to the conscience.

Today's microchips operate by means of low-frequency radio waves that target them. With the help of satellites, the implanted person can be tracked anywhere on the globe. Such a technique was among a number tested in the Iraq war, according to Dr. Carl Sanders, who invented the intell-igence-manned interface (IMI) biotic, which is injected into people. (Earlier during the Vietnam War, soldiers were injected with the Rambo chip, designed to increase adrenaline flow into the bloodstream.) The U.S. National Security Agency's (NSA) 20 billion bits/second supercomputers could now "see and hear" what soldiers experience in the battlefield with a remote monitoring system (RMS). When a 5-micromillimeter microchip (the diameter of a strand of hair is 50 micromillometers) is placed into optical nerve of the eye, it draws neuroimpulses from the brain that embody the experiences, smells, sights and voice of the implanted person. Once transferred and stored in a computer, these neuroimpulses can be projected back to the person's brain via the microchip to be re-experienced. Using a RMS, a land-based computer operator can send electromagnetic messages (encoded as signals) to the nervous system, affecting the target's performance. With RMS, healthy persons can be induced to see hallucinations and to hear voices in their heads.

Every thought, reaction, hearing and visual observation causes a certain neurological potential, spikes, and patterns in the brain and its elect- romagnetic fields, which can now be decoded into thoughts, pictures and voices. Electromagnetic stimulation can therefore change a person's brainwaves and affect muscular activity, causing painful muscular cramps experienced as torture.

The NSA's electronic surveillance system can simultaneously follow and handle millions of people. Each of us has a unique bioelectrical reson- ance frequency in the brain, just like we have unique fingerprints. With electro-magnetic frequency (EMF) brain stimulation fully coded, pulsating electromagnetic signals can be sent to the brain, causing the desired voice and visual effects to be experienced by the target. This is a form of electronic warfare. U.S. astronauts were implanted before they were sent into space so their thoughts could be followed and all their emotions could be registered 24 hours a day.

The Washington Post reported in in May 1995 that Prince William of Great Britain was implanted at the age of 12. Thus, if he were ever kidnapped, a radiowave with a specific frequency could be targeted to his microchip. The chips signal would be routed through a satellite to the computer screen of police headquarters, where the Princes movements could be followed. He could actually be located anywhere on the globe.

The mass media have not reported that an implanted person's privacy van- ishes for the rest of his or her life. S/he can be manipulated in many ways. Using different frequencies, the secret controller of this equip- ment can even change a person's emotional life. S/he can be made aggress- ive or lethargic. Sexuality can be artificially influenced. Thought sig-nals and subconscious thinking can be read, dreams affected and even induced, all without the knowledge or consent of the implanted person. A perfect cyber-soldier can thus be created. This secret technology has been used by military forces in certain NATO countries since the 1980's without civilian and academic populations having heard anything about it. Thus, little information about such invasive mind-control systems is available in professional and academic journals.

The NSA's Signals Intelligence can remotely monitor information from human brains by decoding the evoked potentials (3.50HZ, 5 milliwatt) emitted by the brain. Prisoner experimentees in both Gothenburg, Sweden and Vienna, Austria have been found to have [missing word] brain lesions. Diminished blood circulation and lack of oxygen in the right temporal frontal lobes result where brain implants are usually operative. A Finnish experimentee experienced brain atrophy and intermittent attacks of unconsciousness due to lack of oxygen. Mind control techniques can be used for political purposes. The goal of mind controllers today is to induce the targeted persons or groups to act against his or her own convictions and best interests. Zombified individ-uals can even be programmed to murder and remember nothing of their crime afterward. Alarming examples of this phenomenon can be found in the U.S.