Hacking the Mind (Part 1): optogenetic behavioral control

Is this the future for psychopaths? Image from 
Optogenetics Resource Center.

A friend handed me a recent issue of MIT's Technology Review -- 'Hacking the Soul' -- faintly chuckling it was the oracle he had been seeking. "Do we have a soul -- and how could it be hacked?" he wondered out loud.

Unsurprisingly, the word 'soul' is barely mentioned in this prize-winning journal. Instead, the question is: how can the mind be hacked -- your mind, mine, your bullying boss's, your anxiety prone friend's, your friendly neighbourhood sociopath's, a parole-intent prisoner's...?

As Hippocrates noted more than 2,000 years ago, to understand the mind, start with the brain.[2]  "If my computer can be hacked, why not my brain?" my friend pointed out with a sly grin (or my brain he was, perhaps, diabolically thinking).

1. Hacking Animal Behavior

The bold claim in 'Hacking the Soul'  might blow your mind: developments in neuroscience, namely optogenetics, put "consciousness, free will, memory, learning...on the table now" as objects of scientific investigation and manipulation.  

Controlled, reproducible experiments show that properly prepared animals, including mice and primates, are made to stop fighting mid-fight, start fighting mid-copulation, stop exhibiting behaviours tacked to anxiety or fear, and on and on it goes -- almost instantly after the flip of a switch. 

An anxious mouse will cower in a corner till a switch is flipped and it starts curiously exploring its environment.  Turn off the switch and it goes back to cowering.  Can you imagine being able to do anything like this to yourself, your partner, your child, your worst enemy, or the president of the United States? Well, that is what I was asking myself when I learned about optogenetics a few days ago.

2. Background

Optogenetics is a technique made up of two parts: first a virus or another vector is inserted into a specific area of the brain and inserts itself into some of the neurons there.  The virus encodes a protein that responds to light by generating an electrical impulse.  The second step is to place a fiberoptic laser beam into that small region of the brain.  Then these altered photosensitive neurons can be turned on and off with laser light.  

Since there are more than 10,000 distinct types of neurons in the brain, the belief is that one day specific circuits, controlling specific and context-dependent behaviour and emotion, can be targeted with highly tailored, perhaps even personally tailored drugs, so it won't be necessary to insert an fiberoptic cord in a person's head -- just give them a pill designed for them -- not necessarily for what they want, but also, possibly, for what someone wants of them.  

Indeed the number of people who are forcibly medicated in the US is, by a rough estimate in the range of one million or more each year. More laws diminishing individual liberty, by forcibly medicating a broader class of citizens, are coming on the books.

That "Hacking the Soul" emanates from MIT is fitting for a place where early hackers congregated.  They were forerunners not only of a movement, but of the NSA and the global industry in cyber attack and cyber security.  In, 1963 D. Williams at MIT hacked into password files of a Multics CTSS running on an IBM 7094. Hacking now takes the logical next step -- from computers to brains --  hence to minds, and then to souls -- if you believe in them.

3. What's Next?

The following parts of "Hacking the Mind" delve further into the points raised in this special issue of Technology Review, including evil and free will. I also address broad implications for society should this technology come to fruition including:

•   Criminal behaviour and the justice system
•   Mental illness, particularly personality disorders 
•   children
•   philosophy, ethics and individual liberty
•   you, the reader

Join in with your comments, criticisms, tips... for this new blog.


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[1] For a different and skeptical point of view see "Why “Optogenetic” Methods for Manipulating Brains Don’t Light Me Up" by John Horgan in Scientific American.

[2] Hippocrates did not know about the 2nd brain in the gut, which influences mood and emotion.  With about 100,000,000 neurons, our 2nd brain is about the same size as a dog's, but only 1/1000th the size of our primary one.