http://www.guardian
.co.uk/science/ 2008/aug/ 13/military.
neuroscience
Brain will be battlefield of future, warns US intelligence re****t
The human brain could become a battlefield in future wars, a new
re****t
predicts, including 'pharmacological land mines' and drones directed
by mind
control
Rapid advances in neuroscience could have a dramatic impact on
national
security and the way in which future wars are fought, US intelligence
officials have been told.
In a re****t commissioned by the Defense Intelligence Agency, leading
scientists were asked to examine how a greater understanding of the
brain
over the next 20 years is likely to drive the development of new
medicines
and technologies.
They found several areas in which progress could have a profound
impact,
including behaviour-altering drugs, scanners that can interpret a
person's
state of mind and devices capable of boosting senses such as hearing
and
vision.
On the battlefield, bullets may be replaced with "pharmacological land
mines" that release drugs to incapacitate soldiers on contact, while
scanners and other electronic devices could be developed to identify
suspects from their brain activity and even disrupt their ability to
tell
lies when questioned, the re****t says.
"The concept of torture could also be altered by products in this
market. It
is possible that some day there could be a technique developed to
extract
information from a prisoner that does not have any lasting side
effects,"
the re****t states.
The re****t highlights one electronic technique, called transcranial
direct
current stimulation, which involves using electrical pulses to
interfere
with the firing of neurons in the brain and has been shown to delay a
person's ability to tell a lie.
Drugs could also be used to enhance the performance of military
personnel.
There is already anecdotal evidence of troops using the narcolepsy
drug
modafinil, and ritalin, which is prescribed for attention deficit
disorder,
to boost their performance. Future drugs, developed to boost the
cognitive
faculties of people with dementia, are likely to be used in a similar
way,
the re****t adds.
Greater understanding of the brain's workings is also expected to
usher in
new devices that link directly to the brain, either to allow operators
to
control machinery with their minds, such as flying unmanned
reconnaissance
drones, or to boost their natural senses.
For example, video from a person's gl*****, or audio recorded from a
headset, could be processed by a computer to help search for relevant
information. "Experiments indicate that the advantages of these
devices are
such that human operators will be greatly enhanced for things like
photo
reconnaissance and so on," Kit Green, who chaired the re****t
committee,
said.
The re****t warns that while the US and other western nations might now
consider themselves at the forefront of neuroscience, that is likely
to
change as other countries ramp up their computing capabilities. Unless
security services can monitor progress internationally, they risk
"major,
even catastrophic, intelligence failures in the years ahead", the
re****t
warns.
"In the intelligence community, there is an extremely small number of
people
who understand the science and without that it's going to be
impossible to
predict surprises. This is a black hole that needs to be filled with
light,"
Green told the Guardian.
The technologies will one day have applications in counter-terrorism
and
crime-fighting. The re****t says brain imaging will not improve
sufficiently
in the next 20 years to read peoples' intentions from afar and spot
criminals before they act, but it might be good enough to help
identify
people at a checkpoint or counter who are afraid or anxious.
"We're not going to be reading minds at a distance, but that doesn't
mean we
can't detect gross changes in anxiety or fear, and then subsequently
talk to
those individuals to see what's upsetting them," Green said.
The development of advanced surveillance techniques, such as cameras
that
can spot fearful expressions on people's faces, could lead to some
inventive
ways to fool them, the re****t adds, such as Botox injections to relax
facial
muscles.
|
