Genetically Modified Brain-Cells Stimulated with Light Tested on Monkeys

A new field called optogenics, which is less than a decade old, but progressingly rapidly. It regards the use of viruses to modify genes inside brain-cells to make them able to be stimulated by light.

Now it's been revealed that such tests have already been carried out on monkeys. Of course this has therapeutic uses, but this could also effectively prove to be a tool of mind-control. This is something that is extremely dangerous if misused.

To make it worse, it would probably be something that would be highly likely to be misused by powerful individuals and if used as such it would be catastrophic and would spell the death blow to the ability of a person to make up their own mind, make their own decisions and think for themselves. Since the dawn of mankind people have sought to control the minds of other people.

During the 1960's and 1970's there was a man named Jose Delgado who developed various experiments using complicated electrodes implanted in the brains of animals to control their behavior. This was famously tested on bulls and even human subjects.

He made an ominous quote in 1974 regarding this (emphasis mine)

University Medical School Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118 February 24, 1974

Though unconscionable as his plans were, he at least required an implant: This new method could be accomplished by either

• Infecting a person with a modified virus
• Injecting a person with quantum dots which are small (nanoscale?) metal particles which can be injected by IV; theoretically they can use any wavelength of EM energy (theoretically even ones that can penetrate the skull directly without having to go through the eye)

And disturbingly, from my observations over the past 11 years, tools of oppression tend to be far more likely to be pursued and developed (such as all the developments in surveillance, data-mining, drones, even insect sized ones) than those that do not offer such benefits.


Opinions?

 

Not so much an opinion as a couple of factual points, though I do think the application you suggest is kind of far-fetched and a bit on the paranoid side. Might make a great sci-fi novel though. The links you provided didn't work so I'm not sure what your sources of information were, but I work in the medical biophysics field (though not directly related to the things you have written about here) so I do know something about the technology involved and what some of it's real applications are.

First off, viruses and other microbes are routinely used as vectors for delivering foreign genetic material to single cells or small groups of cells so that the gene can then be expressed in the course of the cells normal metabolism. "Infecting" cells in order to accomplish this isn't like sneezing on someone and transmitting a massive number of viral particles which overwhelm the immune system and cause colds or flu. It is accomplished by a mechanism known as microinjection. Target cells are observed under a microscope and the modified virus is injected with a tiny needle, through the cell membrane. This must be performed on each individual cell one wishes to modify. The vector-gene construct can't just be injected into the bloodstream and there are very few microorganisms that are able to cross the blood-brain barrier anyway. Such tiny numbers of viral particles are not able to overwhelm the immune system the way a cold or flu virus does (indeed, they are denatured so that they are sure not to do that). It's tricky and difficult work, not to mention hugely expensive. Infecting people en mass using current technology would present insurmountable practical problems and while there are a handful of right wing religious nutjobs who'd probably be happy to be able to turn all of us uppity women into Stepford wives, make everyone heterosexual or further reduce the critical thinking skills of citizens, controlling the whole of a person's mind is still firmly situated in the realm of wishful fantasy. Controlling the signalling of groups of cells in the brain has more practical potential in treating stroke victims, cancer, schizophrenia, autism, addiction, depression and other disorders or injury of the brain and CNS.

Secondly, while quantum dots may be injected into the bloodstream they are far too big to cross the blood brain barrier. They range in size from a few nanometers to a couple of hundred nanometers. They are excited with ultraviolet light and where on the visible portion of the EMS they emit depends on their size - the number and nature of semi-conductor layers they are comprised of. On their own, all a quantum dot is capable of doing is absorbing ultraviolet light and emitting light somewhere in the visible spectrum. There was a lot of hope when they were first discovered that they would become a major tool in medical imaging for research but what people found was that they were too big to penetrate cell membranes without damaging or affecting the structures and processes they were meant to measure, and while there are a handful of applications where they do work reasonably well, there are much better molecular tools for illuminating cell structure, function and process. They are also more difficult to attach to biomolecules than other fluorescent probes. They've largely fallen out of favor for most biomedical research applications.

Lastly, a comment about technology in general. Any of it could potentially be used for unethical, specious or downright evil purposes. It's a double-edged sword, so to speak. Take cell phones and the Internet as an example. People have seemed quite willing to trade their personal privacy for the marvelous convenience of instantaneous, global communication to the point where corporate marketing departments probably know more about you than your next door neighbor does. Yet corporate marketing and advertising seems quite effective at controlling peoples minds, does it not? It isn't the technology itself that is inherently good or bad, though some of it does seem more risky, I suppose, but risk itself is something that is subject to individuals differing perceptions of it. We can worry about the potential risk of having some technology used by some despicable group with ill-intent then engage in a far greater risk to health and safety by getting into our car and driving somewhere. Sometimes we weigh the perceived benefits and risks of a given activity and deem the risk acceptable. In the case of optogenetics, the potential benefit of providing relief to people suffering from awful diseases and disorders would outweigh any unlikely chance that someone might develop it for rotten purposes, in my mind at least.

 

I'm pretty sure it's not as simple as putting the shit inside you.

That is, if you get a virus that makes cells sensitive to light, it's not going to be selective. In fact, I'd think you might die, if it did anything at all.

I haven't read up on the shit. But it's not as simple as injecting someone with something and ever-after having optical control over their brain.

 

So very true RooRshack. The brain is an amazingly complex thing and we've barely scratched the surface of understanding how it works, let alone being able to control it. The body of scientific research relating to the use of light to probe the function of cells, proteins and other biological constructs or processes is fairly nascent but nevertheless voluminous and fabulously complex. Even though I work in this field it is near to impossible to stay abreast of the changes and developments in any but one's own particular area of it.

 

However it plays out, we know new technologies are hardly ever used for strategic military purposes or to gain economic advantage.

 

Well, sarcasm aside, the military is often where many new technologies originate because they have a lot more money and resources to do it than most other groups. I'm not in any way suggesting that governments and corporations with political or economic agendas don't develop and use technology for malignant purposes. I'm quite sure they do, in fact. It just doesn't make the technology itself inherently evil and the notion of some group or another being able to infect the public at large with gene-laden viruses in order to control behavior is so far from realizable, given the state of current technology and knowledge about how the brain works, that it's really not worth losing a lot of sleep over. Besides, why go to all that trouble when advertising, propaganda and media hyperbole is sufficient to control most peoples behavior?

In most cases, the flow of information and adoption is the other way around and I'll give you an example. The American military developed some pattern recognition software some time ago that was/is used to identify things like tanks, missile and weapons depots and such from sat cam images. In my work, those same algorithms have been adopted and are used by pathologists to diagnose cancer more quickly, accurately and easily, as well as provide such medical expertise to remote communities where there simply are no experienced pathologists available. There are lots of similar examples.

 

Of course, the technology itself is not inherently evil. But what about governments and corporations with political or economic agendas developing and using technology for malignant purposes?

Agreed- given the state of current technology, it's really not worth losing a lot of sleep over.

If the technology was fully developed however, we know governments would never do their citizens like that, but what about the possibility of a schizophrenic government engaged in a perceived war on terror infecting "the enemy" with gene-laden viruses in order to control behavior?

Since light stimulated, genetically modified brain cells are still in the research phase the old tried and true methods of advertising, propaganda and media hyperbole will just have to do for now.

Since you work in the medical field (which I think, is committed to the Hippocratic Oath) I can understand your skepticism of a skeptic like me.

I see a world where power is not committed to the common good but to personal gain.

 

I think governments and corporations will always have selfish political and economic motives that are sometimes malignant and dangerous to everyone. I'm not convinced this is an argument for ditching a particular technology though. It is an argument, however, for fighting against a particular government or corporation if they are shown to be malignant.

Without inadvertently infecting their own population? Possible, I suppose. Maybe we should have stopped with the technology after we invented the wheel...

Well, I'm just a lowly research tech and not without a healthy dose of skepticism myself, especially where governments and corporations are involved. I just have a hard time accepting action and opinion based on what-if scenarios.

I think that those who lust after power and control over others rarely have anything but self-interest in mind when it comes right down to it, even if they view themselves as governing with the common good in mind. It is "common good" as they perceive it through all of their personal, psychological and cultural lenses.

 

Agreed- this is not an argument for ditching a particular technology.

The military term for that is 'collateral damage.'

Haha, strawman!

Mind control is not a "what-if" scenario; as you've stated, "corporate marketing and advertising seems quite effective at controlling peoples minds." The OP merely suggests mind-control kicked up a notch.

What ethical standard(s) that you know of would prevent the corporate-government model from exploiting new (physical) mind-control technologies?

Agreed- they go around quoting things like this:

 

How so? It wasn't even an argument. I was suggesting that it might have been better for our species if we had not been so gung-ho with all the technology. It may have made our lives easier in some ways but we have largely become slaves to it. A double edged sword the way I see it. Same deal with the signalling control thing. Perhaps it will help some people who have serious medical conditions lead healthier, happier lives and at the same time be used by less scrupulous corporations to sell us crap we don't need, or by the government to make us feel happy when we pay our taxes. It's just the nature of technology in general. It's there. Anyone with the means can use it, for good or bad purposes.

Well, some folks are swayed pretty easily by advertising and others not so much. It's not quite control...more like psychologically intrusive persuasion. It can be resisted with a little effort. Are you controlled by advertising?

I'd call it a quantum leap as opposed to kicked up a notch.

None whatsoever. I wasn't suggesting it wouldn't be used for despicable purposes by unethical people or groups. I was suggesting that the likelihood of anyone being able to develop what is, at present, little more than a medical imaging technology, into something that could selectively infect the public and actively control their minds en masse, is slim to none.

Perhaps they even deceive themselves as to their motivation. As much as I dislike Ayn Rand's philosophy (and even more so those uber-conservatives and libertarians who are fond of mindlessly spewing it to justify regressive social policies), I think it needs to be understood in context - as an extreme intellectual (and probably visceral) reaction to Stalin's USSR and totalitarianism in general. However, I think there is a thread of truth in her assessment of human nature. Most of us are very self-interested. It's just not the only way we are and it's not as glorious and lofty as Ms. Rand made it out to be. We are also altruistic to varying degrees. I think both are important behavioral adaptations.