Scientists Sound Alarm on Mind-Manipulating Brain Weapons of the Future

Scientists warn that advances in neuroscience could enable potent “brain weapons” able to alter perception, memory and behaviour. Experts urge global action to close legal gaps that may allow states to develop dangerous mind-altering tech in use.

Mind-control technology might sound like a plot straight out of Black Mirror, but scientists warn that it’s becoming disturbingly real. In a new book, Dr Michael Crowley and Professor Malcolm Dando of Bradford University caution that advances in neuroscience could allow governments to influence perception, memory and even behaviour.

According to Professor Dando, the same breakthroughs used to treat neurological disorders could also be twisted into tools that “disrupt cognition, induce compliance, or turn people into unwitting agents.”

Their warning is clear: the human brain itself may soon become a battlefield.

A Dark History: From Hallucination Gas to Narcosis Guns

Brain-targeting weapons are not new. During the Cold War, major powers raced to create chemicals that could incapacitate, confuse or sedate large crowds. The US developed BZ, a delirium-inducing compound capable of causing extreme hallucinations, producing 60,000kg of it—enough to fill a specialised 750 lb cluster bomb. China followed with a “narcosis gun” that fires drug-filled syringes.

The only confirmed combat use of a central nervous system weapon came in 2002, when Russian forces deployed a fentanyl-based gas to end the Moscow theatre hostage crisis. While it stopped the attackers, it tragically killed 120 hostages and left survivors with long-term health issues.

The New Frontier: Precision Brain Manipulation

Today’s danger is far more sophisticated. Modern neuroscience allows researchers to map “survival circuits”—the brain pathways controlling fear, aggression, sleep and decision-making. The same knowledge used to treat PTSD, epilepsy or anxiety could, in the wrong hands, be used to manipulate emotions, erase memories, or impair judgement with terrifying precision.

Dr Crowley and Professor Dando argue that these technologies sit in a legal grey zone. Chemical weapons are banned in war, but many CNS-acting chemicals remain allowed for “law enforcement purposes,” leaving loopholes that ambitious states could exploit.

They are now heading to The Hague to urge global regulators to close these gaps before the science outpaces the law.