Scientists don’t yet know where to find, or how to control, specific thoughts or feelings in the brain—but medical research is taking them closer
Since the early 20th century, the name of the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov has been associated with the idea of brainwashing. Pavlov’s experiments, in which he trained dogs to salivate in response to a signal such as a bell, showed that the mind could be conditioned to react automatically to stimuli. But he looked forward to a time when science could manipulate the brain directly.
We still don’t have a precise topography of the brain in terms of specific thoughts or feelings. It’s hard to imagine where one would begin if one wanted to surgically force someone to reveal a particular secret, or to persuade him or her to vote for a certain candidate. But since Pavlov’s time, science has moved much closer to enabling direct physical control of the brain.
The psychologist James Olds , one of the founders of modern neuroscience, conducted an experiment at McGill University in 1953 in which he implanted electrodes deep in the brains of rats and started observing their responses to electrical stimulation at various sites. His key observation resulted from an accident: He missed the desired anatomical site slightly on one particular rat. After recovering from surgery, the animal was placed in a special chamber.
Olds inferred that there was something pleasurable about receiving a shock at that site in the brain. Next he started training the rat to go to different parts of the box or to turn right or left before it could receive the desired electrical stimulation. Using this technique, Olds could elicit complex behaviors easily; Pavlov would have been envious about this shortcut to behavioral conditioning.
The mind-control possibilities for this intervention sounded almost limitless, but would it work on people? Psychiatrist Robert Heath , of Tulane University, performed studies with human patients, including one code-named B-7, a 28-year-old man with severe narcolepsy. Heath implanted a series of electrodes in various areas of his brain and asked the patient what he felt after each area was stimulated.
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