We have control of the mind.

<shrug> Mind control fits perfectly into church philosophy.

Depends which church; most mainstream Christian theologians will tell you that free will is an essential part of a person being a moral agent, and not merely an animal or machine. I can see many religious groups objecting to physical brain control.

Mind control is much easier to do with sensory input (e.g. advertisement) than neural implants or drugs. You have to be very desperate to ask for chronic electrode implants. Some Parkinson's patients are indeed desperate enough so these are now routinely implanted to desynchronize tremor. But they would be very rudimentary for targeted mind control. Thanks for hosting this comment.

<b><a href="http://www.neuroprosthesis.org/blogger.html" target="new">NeuroProsthesis News</a></b>

In 1990, Salzman, Britten, & Newsome (Nature 346:174-7) placed a stimulating electrode in area MT, a region in middle temporal cortex involved in the perception of visual motion. By microstimulating specific neurons in area MT, the experimenters were able to change the monkey's perception of the direction of motion in a visual display. Although it was an astonishing breakthrough in systems neuroscience, it went unnoticed in the popular press. Three weeks ago, on the other hand, the "roborat" story was carried by every major press outlet, mainly because of the potential military application to the "war on terror" (little furry remote-control bomb sniffers), rather than for the primary aim to assist paralyzed people. Although it's essential to be mindful of future neuroscientific abuses, the press doesn't mention the difficulty of getting even the most non-invasive experimental protocols approved by Institutional Review Boards governing research with human subjects. The Economist article leads one to believe

The Economist article leads one to believe just the opposite, that neuroscientists will soon implant electrodes in the brains of children with ADHD.

I saw the Mothman Prophecies today, a perfect example of a movie made under the influence of Frankenstein eye-television and Ear-Radio.