Electronic implants in the brain

Found this here.

Jose Delgado’s development of the Stimoceiver in the 1950s brought intelligence agencies’ ultimate dream of controlling human behavior one step closer to reality. The Stimoceiver—a miniature electrode capable of receiving and transmitting electronic signals by FM radio—could be placed within an individual’s cranium. And once in place, an outside operator could manipulate the subject’s responses. Delgado demonstrated the potential of his Stimoceivers by wiring a fully-grown bull. With the device in place, Delgado stepped into the ring with the bull. The animal charged towards the experimenter – and then suddenly stopped, just before it reached him. The powerful beast had been stopped with the simple action of pushing a button on a small box held in Delgado’s hand.

Dr. Delgado, a neurosurgeon and professor at Yale, received funding for brain electrode research on children and adults. He did research in monkeys and cats, and in one paper describes the cats as “mechanical toys.” He was able to control the movements of his animal and human subjects by pushing buttons on a remote transmitter box. In 1966, Delgado asserted that his experiments “support the distasteful conclusion that motion, emotion and behavior can be directed by electrical forces, and that humans can be controlled like robots by push buttons.”

An 11-year old boy underwent a partial change of identity upon remote stimulation of his brain electrode: “Electrical stimulation of the superior temporal convolution induced confusion about his sexual identity. These effects were specific, reliable, and statistically significant. For example, the patient said, 'I was thinking whether I was a boy or a girl,' and 'I’d like to be a girl.'" After one of the stimulations the patient suddenly began to discuss his desire to marry the male interviewer. Temporal-lobe stimulation produced in another patient open manifestations and declarations of pleasure, accompanied by giggles and joking with the therapist. In two adult female patients stimulation of the same region was followed by discussion of marriage and expression of a wish to marry the therapist.

Brain electrode research was also conducted independently at Harvard by Dr. Delgado’s coauthors, Drs. Vernon Mark, Frank Ervin, and William Sweet. Mark and Ervin describe implanting brain electrodes in a large number of patients at Harvard hospitals. A patient named Jennie was 14 years old when they put electrodes in her brain. In their book Violence and the Brain, photographs show 18-year old Julia smiling, angry, or pounding the wall depending on which button is being pushed on the transmitter box sending signals to her brain electrodes. The mind control doctors saw their patients as biological machines, a view which made them sub-human, and therefore easier to abuse in mind control experiments.

Dr. Robert G. Heath, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Tulane University, placed brain electrodes in a young homosexual man and fitted him with a box. A button on the box could be used to electrically stimulate an electrode implanted in a pleasure center. During one three-our period, the patient, referred to as B-19, stimulated himself 1,500 times. “During these sessions, B-19 stimulated himself to a point that he was experiencing an almost overwhelming euphoria and elation, and had to be disconnected, despite his vigorous protests."

Dr. John Lilly describes the technique of electrode implantation. “Electrodes could be implanted in the brain without using anesthesia. Short lengths of hypodermic needle tubing equal in length to the thickness of the skull were quickly pounded through the scalp into the skull. These stainless steel guides furnished passageways for the insertion of electrodes into the brain to any desired distance and at any desired location. Because of the small size of the sleeve guides, the scalp quickly recovered from the small hole made in it, and the sleeve guide remained embedded in the bone for months to years. At any time he desired, the investigator could palpate [rub] the scalp and find the location of each of the sleeve guides. Once one was found, he inserted a needle down through the bone. After withdrawing the needle, the investigator placed a small sharp electrode in the track made by the needle and pressed the electrode through the skull and down into the substance of the brain to any desired depth.”