All language subtitles for The.Brain.A.Secret.History.S01E01

Why do we do the things we do?

What really makes us tick?

How do our minds work?

For centuries,
these questions were largely left
to philosophers and theologians.

Then, about 100 years ago,
a new science began to shine

a bright light
on the inner workings of the mind.

It was called
"experimental psychology".

In this series, I'm tracing the
history of how this "new science"

revealed things about ourselves

that were surprising
and often profoundly shocking.

The experiment requires
that we continue.

But he might be dead in there!

In this film, I'm investigating the
inventive, sometimes barbaric ways

psychology has been used to control
and manipulate people.

How does it feel, good or bad?

Good. Good?

It's a science which strikes at
the heart of what we hold most dear.

Our free will. I don't think
people like having their behaviour

tinkered with, I don't think
they like to be told what to do.

The pursuit of mind control led
to some truly horrific experiments.

And left many casualties
in its wake.

I only remember that I forget.

Everything.

But investigating the forces that
shape our minds and our behaviour

has also led to profound insights
into how the brain works.

Ever since I was a medical student,
I have been fascinated by
psychology, by what it has revealed

about ourselves
and by how far some researchers
have been prepared to go.

I'm on my way to Cardiff
and I'm feeling apprehensive.

I'm about to take
a class A hallucinogenic drug.

In the past, this drug and others
like it were used in experiments

which were designed
with a very sinister purpose.

To achieve total mind control.

The drug I'm going to
be given is psilocybin,

the active ingredient
of magic mushrooms.

Normally, taking psilocybin
would be illegal.

Michael. Hello, nice to see you.

But in this case,
Professor David Nutt

and his team from Imperial College
are doing a scientific study.

The first of its kind in the UK.

So, am I going to enjoy this?

I think so.
Most people do, most people get
something positive from it.

We've had no bad reactions,
so don't worry about
what you're going to feel.

I think you may enjoy it.
It's a bit odd, the idea of having
your consciousness played with.

You do it all the time,
don't you? Every time you go out
and get drunk. OK.

The team are expecting psilocybin
to have a significant impact on me.

So I'm put through physical
and psychological tests.

Would you describe yourself
as a spiritual person? A bit.

And would you describe yourself
as a mystical person? No.

So I'm going to
prepare the drug now.

See that tiny amount in there?
Can you see it? Just.

That's 3.5 milligrams,
so you get two milligrams.

So that's going to be it?
That's it, but it does quite a lot.

Surprisingly enough,
David Nutt believes that,
by changing the brain,

psilocybin's mind-bending properties
may help psychiatric disorders,
like depression.

Before they test it on patients, the
team want to find out exactly how it
acts on normal brains, like mine.

It can be quite traumatic.
The last volunteer we had
had quite a dramatic response.

He said it was probably the
strangest experience of his life.
OK.

He said that, um,
his whole sense of self dissolved,
and he only existed as a concept.

MICHAEL LAUGHS

OK, I'm not sure I wish to only
exist as a concept. We shall see.

I am starting to wonder what
sort of trip I'm going to have.

I'm placed in a brain scanner
so the team can map in detail
how my brain reacts to psilocybin.

Then the drug is injected.

The result? Well, it would turn out
to be one of the strangest and most
unusual experiences of my life.

Today, drugs are at
the cutting edge of mind control.

But down the years, scientists have
experimented with more unusual ways
to manipulate our brains.

There is a long and murky history
behind scientific attempts

to control emotions, behaviour,
and decision-making.

I think some of the most
interesting stuff can be traced

to an accidental discovery by
a Russian, more than 100 years ago.

In the 1890s, biologist Ivan Pavlov
was studying dogs,

many of which had been snatched
off the streets of St Petersburg.

His early experiments seemed to have
nothing to do with mind control.

He was studying reflexes in animals.

Pavlov was interested
in saliva, and in particular,

how much saliva is produced when
we eat different sorts of foods.

Now, he studied it in dogs.

He operated on his dogs
so he could accurately measure

the saliva
they produced when they saw food.

To Pavlov's immense surprise,

he discovered
that the dogs would salivate

not just when they got the food,

but when they simply saw
the men in white coats

who brought them the food.

This was utterly unexpected.

Pavlov realised that his dogs
had made an association

between the lab coat
and the arrival of food.

It was this association,
rather than the food itself,

that produced the saliva reflex.

Pavlov wanted
to train other responses.

As he did so, his experiments
became increasingly brutal.

In this experiment,
the beat of the metronome

is combined with an electric shock.

CRACKLING

Oh, poor dog.

The electric shock is given
a number of times.

Until the beat of
the metronome alone
is enough to cause the dog to jump.

The Pavlovian response is one
of the most famous discoveries
in the history of psychology.

What is less well-known
is that Pavlov didn't
confine himself to dogs.

Disturbingly, he was also involved
in experiments on children.

Like the dogs, some of the children
appear to have been operated on.

That's really very horrible.

They're feeding him
just like the dog

and they're collecting
the saliva over here.

He does not look happy.

In this experiment, a child
is fed cookies through a tube.

The experimenter activates the
device to squeeze the child's wrist,

and at the same moment
releases a cookie.

Like the dogs, the child soon
develops a conditioned reflex.

Without thinking about it,
he opens his mouth
whenever the device is squeezed.

Chomping away as though
he's anticipating the cookie.

Looks like something out
of a science-fiction film.

Very hard to imagine
this actually happened.

These experiments are
very distressing.

But through them, Pavlov was able
to show that human reflexes can be
conditioned just as easily as dogs.

According to Pavlov,
our reflexes start being conditioned
from the moment we're born.

As we progress through life,
more and more of these
conditioned reflexes

are implanted in our brains,
building up complex behaviours.

And once you understand the basics

of how those behaviours
are laid down,

well, perhaps you can begin
to also control them.

BABY CRIES

Pavlov's discoveries
are fundamental to mind control,
but they are limited.

They only condition behaviours
that already exist.

By the time Pavlov died
in the mid-1930s,

new techniques had been developed
in America that promised far more
sophisticated mind manipulation.

These methods also held
the enticing possibility
of being used on a grand scale.

The man behind these developments
was so controversial
that he was hung in effigy.

The vice president described him
as "most dangerous".

And the FBI kept
a detailed file on him.

I'm here to meat Deborah Buzan,
daughter of BF Skinner,

one of the most famous
and infamous scientists
in the history of psychology.

Hello. Hello. Michael Mosley.

Nice to meet you. Come in.

He's receiving an honorary degree
at Harvard here.

He was terribly proud of that.
Uh-huh.

And here he is with a rat.
SHE LAUGHS

This, again, is the machine behind
with the gazillion wires and things.

It would all be done
very differently today.

That's my father
putting the pigeon into
what became known as the Skinner Box.

The key to Skinner's research
was the so-called Skinner Box.

He used it to create new behaviour.

In this Skinner Box, a pigeon
is given a record every time
it pecks the word "peck".

Or turns full circle
when it sees the word "turn" appear.

The pigeon has learnt that
when it performs these actions,
it gets food.

So it continues to do them.

As it does so,
this new behaviour is reinforced.

This pigeon experiment, and many
like it, demonstrated graphically

that carefully-timed rewards

can reinforce, change or even
create new behaviours.

Deborah is using her father's
technique to train her cats
to play the piano.

Lola's not exactly a virtuoso,
but she has learnt that a little
tinkle earns a piece of chicken.

I like the fact she changes notes.

Oh, that was good.

Teaching animals cute tricks
is hardly controversial,

but Skinner had defined
a precise and powerful way

of modifying behaviour and said
it should be used on humans.

He wanted to apply his
scientific methods of psychological
manipulation to whole populations.

He was really, essentially,
telling people how to behave,

how to act,
maybe how to create a world

in which people would act differently
from the way they already acted.

And I don't think people like to
have their behaviour tinkered with.

I don't think they like
to be told what to do.

Skinner believed that many of
the problems of modern society

could be improved if a ruling elite
were to use his methods
to control behaviour.

Using them would reduce violence
and improve productivity.

Skinner's psychologically-controlled
society brushed aside

an individual's role in determining
and shaping their own destiny.

He saw belief in free will
as unscientific nonsense.

These views polarised opinion.

On 3rd May, 1972, the same day that
6000 students cheered him on

in Michigan, he was hung
in effigy at Indiana University.

He very much wanted to get
across his message. I don't know

if he expected such a reception,
which was not all good, of course.

But, certainly, it made people
sit up and think.

Skinner's utopia never materialised.

But his methods of behaviour control
are now widely used

in everyday life.

They have been particularly
influential in the world
of child development,

where the use of well-targeted
rewards to encourage good behaviour

has become
an established parenting technique.

And for some children, Skinner's
methods have proved life-changing.

I've tried applying
some of Skinner's techniques

to my own kids in a slightly
sort of haphazard fashion.

What I've never done is I've never
seen it applied systematically
and in an organised way.

And I'm hoping to see that in here.

In the Jigsaw School for
Autistic Children in Surrey,

the teachers use a system
based on Skinner's principles called
Applied Behaviour Analysis.

We're going to go
and watch Rohit working.

Take a seat. Thank you.

Rohit started with us last September,
so he's almost done
a full academic year with us.

He's actually behaving beautifully
this morning,

but within his repertoire,

he can assault staff,
he likes to pull hair.

Eight-year-old Rohit is working
through a series of learning tasks.

Each task is broken down
into small parts.

He gets a token for completing
each part of the task.

Point to a cube. That's a cube.
Good boy, give me high-five.

Well done. You can take off
a token, that was lovely work.

Every single correct response here
is being reinforced by the teacher.

Our main focus is,
if we're constantly praising and
reinforcing appropriate behaviour,

we will see an increase
in that appropriate behaviour.

It is a mushroom. It is a mushroom.

Good boy, you're trying really hard.
Good job, Mister.

The key is to consistently reward
the behaviours and responses
they want to encourage.

Rohit is working towards the bigger
prize of time in the soft play area.

So they get a combination
of reinforces, if you like,

so it's a mixture of praise,
pat on the back, and a point

which they know
leads to a prize? Yes.

Rohit eventually gets his prize -
playtime in the soft room.

But more importantly,
he'd sat for over an hour
learning picture-word associations.

Something that would have been
impossible just a year ago.

Are you a fan of Skinner, then?

I am a fan of Skinner, yes.

It is really heart-warming watching
the way that Skinner's ideas

of positive reinforcement
are being put into practice
in such a sort of practical way.

And I also think that,
without Skinner, these kids' lives
would be an awful lot bleaker.

Skinner believed passionately
that behaviour modification

could and should be used
to make the world a better place.

'A false testimony, really,

'which I had fabricated
to keep them happy. '

But, in the 1950s,
when he was developing his ideas,

research into mind control had
already taken a more sinister turn.

Fuelled by
the ruthless needs of war.

By then, America was fighting
the Communists in Korea.

As the conflict raged,
a sinister new weapon emerged.

'I did sign a confession,
relating to germ warfare.

'How can I tell them these things?'

It first came to light
when the North Koreans paraded
their American prisoners of war.

'How can I go back
and face my family?

'In a civilised world,
how can I tell them these things?

'That I am a criminal
in the eyes of humanity.

'They are my flesh and blood. '

These images
really disturbed people.

American soldiers
denouncing American aggression.

How had the North Koreans done it?

How had they, in such a short period
of time, managed to convert them
to the Communist cause?

'How can I go back
and face my family?

'They are my flesh and blood.

'..and absurd.
I did sign a confession... '

This was a terrifying new weapon
that threatened the freedom
of the West.

And they gave this weapon a name.

Brainwashing.

'People who used to be
in the asylum... '

A huge effort was made to try
and uncover the secrets of
the Communist brainwashers.

In Britain, an ambitious
psychiatrist soon became convinced
he knew how it was done.

His name was William Sargant, and
his radical approach to psychiatry
inspired both loyalty and loathing.

He once said of himself, "Some
people say I'm a wonderful doctor.

"Others that I am the work
of the devil."

Sargant had a theory
on brainwashing,

and it was based on the work of
none other than Ivan Pavlov.

Sargant had read about one of
Pavlov's lesser-known experiments,

in which he'd tried to
remove his dogs' conditioning.

Typically, Pavlov had not
gone for half measures.

He had induced nervous breakdowns
in his dogs, and found that
this rapidly and dramatically,

removed the conditioned behaviour
he had so painstakingly created.

Pavlov concluded that, during the
breakdown, established connections
in the dogs' brains were lost.

When the brain rewired itself,
it made new connections, leading to
dramatic changes in behaviour.

Sargant thought that Pavlov's work
was central to understanding
brainwashing.

How somebody could change
their core beliefs
in a very short period of time.

Just as with the dogs, Sargant
believed that when a human brain

is broken down,
connections are lost,
which then need to be rebuilt.

He decided to use this insight
as the basis of a radical treatment
for mentally ill patients.

His aim was simple.
To break down and then re-programme
their troubled minds.

Mary Thornton was 21 when she
was admitted under Sargant's care.

My memories are like snapshots.

One is of the electrodes being
attached to the side of my head.

Being given a general anaesthetic.

Seeing an image of myself in the
mirror one day, seeing a strange face
looking back at myself.

And being really, really frightened
that I would never get out.

40 years on, Mary has returned
to the Royal Waterloo Hospital in
London, once part of St Thomas'.

This... It... One of these rooms
is the room I recovered in.

And it was on the left-hand side.

And it could have been that room.

It could have been a room
exactly like that.

Mary's parents had admitted her
to the hospital following a series
of rows over a new boyfriend.

I understood that I was there to be
treated for an acute anxiety state.

And I was told that I would be given
sleep treatment to help my, erm...

.. head to have a nice, long rest.

Mary, and other patients,
became unwitting guinea pigs,
testing Sargant's more radical ideas

Every available method is used here,
all at the same time.

Sargant believed it was essential
to use a wide range of approaches

if he was to break down
established patterns of thinking.

He began with a process of
"modified narcosis".

Patients were put into a medicated
sleep for up to three months.

The patients are woken three times
a day for feeding,

and to check on
whether they're getting better.

They were then given copious amounts
of drugs, combined with bouts of
electric shock therapy, or ECT.

OK? Go.
110 volts for three seconds

through the frontal lobes
of the brain.

Sargant was convinced he had to
use all the tools available to him
if he was to wipe the slate clean.

He had also suffered
from depression,

and knew it could be
life-threatening,

so the risks were worth it.

In all my 30 years,
I've tried never to use any method

that I wouldn't use on myself.

All that matters is,
don't do unto others what you
wouldn't have done to yourself.

For many patients like Mary,
this barrage of treatments had
a dramatic effect on their minds.

I only remember that I forget.

Everything.

That's what ECT made you do.

In this building,
I saw her maybe four times,

I visited maybe four times.

And she progressively
got less aware of who I was.

On one occasion,
she didn't know me from Adam.

After three months at the Royal
Waterloo, Mary was discharged.

Sargant's belief that her brain,
shaken and shocked,

would reassemble itself, free from
the shackles of her past, was wrong.

When I left, I had great
big black holes in my memory.

I was sent to convalesce
to my brother in Yorkshire.

A week or so into my stay, I suddenly
remembered that I had a boyfriend,

and I found his telephone number.
And I phoned him up.

And he came to meet me in London.

Lucky for me!

And we've been together ever since.

We had her on two grams.

That's 2,000 milligrams. Yes.

Sargant had shown that,
with drugs and ECT, he could
disrupt and destroy memories.

Yet, with patients like Mary,
he failed to break patterns
of behaviour

and alter personal beliefs.

The human mind had proved
remarkably resilient to change.

And, without these new treatments,
we did have psychotherapy

and psychoanalysis...

Sargant's theories on brainwashing
were flawed,

and rejected by
many British psychiatrists.

'How can I go back
and face my family? '

But across the Atlantic, in the
United States, a frantic search

to learn the secrets of Communist
mind control continued unabated.

'They're my flesh and blood. '

In response to the threat
of brainwashing, the CIA had set up

their own secret operation,
code name MK-ULTRA.

MK-ULTRA employed many of
the leading scientists of the day.

From 1953, they embarked on a series
of increasingly bizarre experiments,

designed to replicate the
Communist brainwashing techniques.

They subjected people
to sensory deprivation,
total isolation, electric shocks.

One research area that seemed
promising was drugs, and one class
of drug stood out from all the rest.

They seemed to change the world.

They distorted vision,
and they warped sound.

They created vivid hallucinations.

Hallucinogenic drugs like LSD
and psilocybin had only recently

been discovered, and were
the subject of intense research.

They held out the enticing
possibility of controlling
another person's mind.

Perhaps they could also
change your core beliefs.

The top-secret operatives from
MK-ULTRA experimented on themselves,

their colleagues and on
unsuspecting members of the public.

And the American military
also attempted to harness
their mind-bending powers.

How you feel?
I could run 100 miles right now.

Is that right? That's right.
Pretty pepped up, huh?

But, while the drugs
were certainly mind-altering,

they were useless
as a form of brainwashing.

The effects were too temporary,
too unpredictable
to reliably alter an individual.

The huge effort to produce
a foolproof method of brainwashing
had failed.

And, following the end of the
Korean War, it emerged that Communis
techniques were also flawed.

Many of the soldiers who had
denounced America while in captivity

rediscovered their patriotism
when they got home.

Brainwashing turned out to be
an illusory weapon of war.

For many years, there was
diminished scientific interest

in the mind-altering properties
of hallucinogenic drugs.

Now, half a century on,
things are changing.

As part of an experiment, I have
been injected with psilocybin,

the active component
of magic mushrooms.

Professor Nutt and his team look on
as the drug races through my system.

They want to understand exactly
how the drug works on my brain.

Ten on that scale
is extremely intense.

How anxious he feels now...

He'll be hallucinating, certainly.

He might be seeing colours
and swirling patterns.

Probably some
bodily feelings as well.

His body might feel
slightly different.

Maybe a kind of floating sensation.

Inside the machine,
I was convinced I could levitate.

Make the walls of the
scanner dissolve, and fly up
to the stars at supersonic speed.

It was all rather beautiful.

His sense of time has slowed down.

OK, Michael, we're all finished,
I'll come and get you out.

Thank you.

'Although the effects of psilocybin
had largely worn off,

'I had an uncontrollable urge
to talk. And talk. '

That was very strange,
I have to say, because I thought,
"Whoa!" and then, "Whoo!"

It was really sort of,
whoosh, take-off.

'And talk. And talk. '

It took me back
to when I was eight years old

and I used to rub my eyeballs
in an attempt to have
religious experiences.

You felt it, when it came,
it was just like being in a sort of
Star Trek thing,

going into hyperspace,
and "whoo".

As soon as you start thinking even
the slightest bad thoughts, you
think, "This is really, really...

"I don't want to go there."
And actually, dragging yourself back
from it is very difficult.

I'm still feeling very strange.
But you want to go out
and share it with everyone.

You want to go and say, "Hello!"
and talk about it.

My results will be merged
with scans from other volunteers

to identify the precise areas inside
the brain where the drug is active.

And you see there are essentially
three big, blue blobs.

What blue means is that

the activity of the brain
has shut down. Switched off!

When we went into this study,
we thought that this drug

would activate, certainly different
parts of the brain to those,

but we don't find
any activation anywhere.

All we find
are reductions in blood flow.

David Nutt believes
that the areas of the brain

that are being switched off
are critical to the experience
I've just had.

The blobs in the middle
are the part of the brain
that tells us who and what we are.

When these were dampened down, I was
released from everyday constraints.

You were able to break free
from the normal constraints
of what you are -

"I'm a father, I've got to go home
in an hour-and-a-half,
I've got to make this programme."

The fact it dampens activity
in these areas

may provide clues
as to how psilocybin
could be used to treat depression.

One of the things we think is that,
if in conditions like depression
or obsessive compulsive disorder,

where people get locked
into a mindset which is maladaptive,

these regions may be overactive. Ah.

Maybe dampening those down

will help people move into
another mindset

which might be better and healthier.

If you wanted to shift somebody
who's profoundly depressed

out of that mindset, something
like this might conceivably...

It's conceivable.
We need to do the experiments.

That's part of the rationale.

It helps take you
from this rigid motoric process

of thinking, into something
that may be more positive.

'The idea that you could use
a psychedelic drug like psilocybin

'to treat depression
is certainly surprising.

'If it works,
one advantage is, it works fast. '

You changed immediately. Whether it
would produce immediate changes

into a depressed person,
we don't know.

If it did, it would be wonderful,
wouldn't it?

If particularly you could hold
on to those and maintain them.

It may turn out that hallucinogenic
drugs do have a part to play
in mind control.

As a therapeutic tool, to help
patients think more positively,

it's a far cry from the ambitions
of would-be brainwashers.

'"How is it possible?"
I ask myself. '

In the 1960s, a new discovery
would uncover a far more pervasive

and effective way
of controlling people.

It was far more subtle
and almost impossible to escape.

But he might be dead in there!

The new approach emphasised
the importance of social pressure,

of the social context
you find yourself in.

To find out more,
psychologists devised
elaborate, human experiments.

Sometimes with a shocking results.

The son of Jewish immigrants
from Eastern Europe,
Stanley Milgram wanted

to understand why so many people
took part in the perpetration
of terrible war crimes.

Milgram was curious to find out
what drove German soldiers
to participate in the Holocaust.

How was it possible, I ask myself,
that ordinary people, courteous
and decent in everyday life,

can act callously, inhumanely,
without any limitations
of conscience?

Milgram described the moment
he conceived his experience
as "incandescent".

It was beautifully,
almost fiendishly designed,

to reveal uncomfortable flaws
about human nature.

It made a huge impact worldwide.

I remember, as a teenager, reading
about it and later watching footage.

It had an enormous impact on me.

It influenced my later decision to
train as a doctor with the intention
of becoming a psychiatrist.

It's nearly 50 years since
the original experiment and today,

I'm fortunate enough to be meeting
one of the few remaining survivors.

Good morning. Morning.

Hello, Michael Mosley. Hi, Michael.
Bill Menold. Nice to meet you.
Thank you very much.

'In 1962, Bill Menold
had recently left the army
and was working in New Haven. '

I happened to see an ad in the
New Haven Register and it said
"memory and learning experiment".

They were going to pay you $4.
I thought,

"Why wouldn't I do this?"

I've got some footage here
from Yale University.

'Bills participation
in the experiment wasn't filmed,
but other volunteers were. '

This guy here... He was the pupil.

This is basically the...

experimenter.
The experimenter. The doctor.

The experiment involved a teacher
and a learner, who were given
a simple set of memory tasks.

If the learner got
the answers wrong,

the teacher had to give him electric
shocks, which steadily increased.

Were you surprised when they
talked about electric shocks?

I wasn't aghast or anything,
but a was, "Oh, electric shocks,
what a novel way to do it.

"Who knows
what they'll think of next?"

What Bill and the other volunteers
weren't told

was that the electric shocks

were fake and that both
the experimenter and the learner
were, in fact, actors.

The real purpose of the experiment
was to see how many electric shocks

the volunteers like Bill
would administer.

It's very convincing, isn't it?

It is Academy Award nomination.

'Bill and the other volunteers
were asked to increase the voltage

'every time the learner
got an answer wrong. '

You're now getting
a shock of 75 volts.

Ow!

180 volts.

Ow!

Just how far can you go
on this thing?

Despite the apparent pain
they were inflicting, most continued
to increase the shocks.

Incorrect.

150 volts.

Ah!

If you're sitting in that chair

with this stuff going on,

and the pressure that you're under,
it's very hard to think clearly.

I'm up to 180 volts!

Please continue, teacher.

Neil, you're going to get a shock,
180 volts.

SWITCH CLICKS
Ow!

Who's going to take the
responsibility if anything
happens to that gentlemen?

I'm responsible for anything
that happens here.

Continue, please.

Milgram asked colleagues beforehand
how many people they thought

would administer the lethal
450-volt shock.

Most said about one per cent, and
those would probably be psychopaths.

195 volts. Dance!

Ow! Let me out of here!

Then they really cranked it up.

You were talking
about traumatic experiences.

I've never had anything before
or since that was like that.

Start with blue, please,
at the top of the page.

Continue, please, teacher.

Did you at any point think that
perhaps you'd killed him?

Yes.

When he stopped responding.

The experiment requires that
we continue. Go on, please.

Don't the man's health
mean anything?

Whether they learner likes it or
not... He might be dead in there.

I shut off my moral...

compass.

Continue, please.

435 volts.

Once you make the decision,
you've made your decision.

Let's get this show on the road
and get it over with.

The answer is "horse".

450 volts.

Next word.

Bill,
like two thirds of the volunteers,
gave the lethal electric shock.

I thought Bill was very honest,
particularly when he started to talk
about that moment when he abandoned

his moral compass and he handed over
responsibility for his actions
to the experimenter.

I guess that's what
Milgram demonstrated.

We put like to believe we're
autonomous creatures, that we follow
some sort of moral principles.

What Milgram showed is that,
in the right circumstances,

you can persuade someone
to do almost anything.

According to Milgram, Bill Menold
and the other participants

who administered lethal shocks
were not psychopaths.

They had simply demonstrated
a striking willingness
to obey authority.

Wrong. It was this willingness
to obey authority that shaped
and controlled their behaviour.

SWITCH CLICKS
Ah!

Milgram said it didn't matter if you
were German or American, the power
of authority remained the same.

Milgram said it didn't matter if you
were German or American, the power
of authority remained the same.

Milgram's experiments
catapulted him to worldwide fame,

and he used his numerous television
appearances to spread his ideas
to a wider audience.

Now, one of the illusions about
human behaviour is it stems entirely
from personality or character.

But social psychology
shows us that often,

behaviour is dominated by

the social roles we're asked to play.

Revealing the pervasive
and sometimes malign influence
of authority

chimed well with the anti-authority
sentiments of the late 1960s.

But Milgram's own motivation
was not mistrust of authority.

He wanted to understand WHY
authority has such a hold over us.

To do this, he took to the streets.

Yes, sir, where to? 33 West 42nd.

Milgram started by pointing out how,
unquestioningly,

we obey authority figures in a whole
range of different situations.

In this setting,
I allow things to be done to me

that I wouldn't allow
in any other context.

The dentist is about to put his fist
and electric drill into my mouth.

Open, please.

In this setting,

I willingly expose my throat
to a man with a razor blade.

What he did next would throw
new light on why we're so obedient.

Milgram wanted to see how people
would behave in a situation where
there was no obvious authority.

How would you react
if a perfect stranger came up to you

on the train and said,
"I'd like your seat, please?"

Well, this is exactly what Milgram
and his students did
on the New York subway.

Now, if you ask a New Yorker,
would he give up his seat to a man
who gives no reason for asking,

he'd say, "Never." But what would he
do? We photographed what happened.

Excuse me, ma'am,
may have your seat please?

All right. Thank you.

Excuse me, sir,
may have your seat please?

I guess so. Thank you very much.

But would it work today?

I decided to repeat his experiment
in a London shopping centre.

Excuse me,
could I have that seat please?

Huh? Could I have that seat, please?

Yes. Could I sit there? Why?

I'd like to sit down.

If you give me a reason.

Excuse me, could I have
that seat, please? Yes, sure.

Thank you very much.

Excuse me, could I have your seat,
please? Yes, sure.

Thank you very much.

I was surprised by how many people
complied with my totally
unreasonable request.

About half. Excuse me,
could I have that seat please?

Yes. OK, thank you.

Excuse me, could I sit there please?

Why do you want to sit here?
I want to sit down. Pardon?

I want to sit down. Why can't
you sit here? Can I sit there?

Is that a yes or a no? No.

But what really surprised me
was just how difficult I personally
found the whole experience.

My real feeling at this moment
is one of just profound relief

that it's done.

I felt really uncomfortable
throughout the whole thing.

This is also what Milgram felt.

I stood in front of a passenger
and I was about to say,
"Excuse me, sir, may have your seat?"

I found something very interesting.
There was an enormous inhibition.

The words wouldn't come out.
I simply couldn't utter them.

There was a terrible constraint
against saying this simple phrase.

Milgram concluded
that feeling socially awkward

and embarrassed plays an important
role in governing our behaviour.

We don't like breaking
the social rules,

whether it's asking for
someone's seat for no good reason,

or disobeying the instruction
of somebody

whose authority
we have accepted.

In ordinary, everyday situations,

there's an implicit set of rules
as to who's in charge.

If we violate these rules, it leads
to the disruption of behaviour,

to embarrassment, awkwardness,
to a kind of social chaos.

Ordinarily, we accept the submissive
role that the occasion requires.

According to Milgram,
compliance in society and obedience
to authority is necessary.

Our social organisation
depends on it.

If we're to have a society,
we must have members of society
willing to obey its laws.

It's not simply a question
of whether or not
we want to be controlled.

According to Milgram,
our social organisation demands it.

As a means of control,
there's no doubt that social pressure

is ever-present
and highly effective.

But social pressure, like drugs
or behaviour modification,

or even Pavlovian training,
wasn't able to deliver
total mind control.

There was, however, still one
group of scientists who believed

they could control behaviour
and emotions with pinpoint accuracy.

To do so, they would have to
develop techniques
to go directly into the brain.

CRACKLING

Are you sleepy or awake or what?

I'm awake now.

The origins of this approach lie
in a series of bizarre experiments

conducted by an ambitious doctor
in the American Deep South.

Psychiatrist Robert Heath
was a maverick and a pioneer.

From the early 1950s onwards,
in New Orleans, he used electrodes

to stimulate and also to map out
his patients' brains.

DOOR BELL RINGS

John! Hello, buddy.
Welcome, good to see you.

John Goethe and James Eaton
worked with Heath on many of his
more ambitious experiments.

He wanted to be a discoverer.

He wanted to find a new path.
But there was no question

that there was, um...

a light side and a dark side.

I really loved the guy,

but if you love someone,

and you're very close to them,

you see all sorts of warts.

He had plenty of warts.

Heath was not afraid of controversy.

He passionately believed you had to
experiment on humans to make truly
significant medical breakthroughs.

He conducted his most controversial
research in the state of Louisiana.

At the time, the consent process
was not as rigorous as it is now.

His goal was ambitious - to see if
he could alter behaviour by sticking
electrodes into people's brains.

Heath was inspired by experiments
that had been done on rats.

Electrodes were implanted directly
into areas of the rat's brain

believed to be responsible
for pleasure.

When the rat pressed the lever,
it stimulated these areas.

The scientists found
that this process

could dramatically change
the rat's normal behaviour.

BUZZING

This rat is prepared to
run across an electrified floor

to reach the lever, press it,
and get a pleasure kick.

Heath decided to take the extreme
step of trying this on humans.

How do you feel?

It's... like coming on.

Hmm?

Like coming on.
Like something coming on?

What do you mean?

'The depth electrode procedure'

involved placing these very thin
wires through the skull

and into precisely located-areas

thought to be important
in the regulation of emotion.

This idea that the emotions
are deep in the temporal lobes,
rather than being on the surface,

was an idea shared by many,
but he's the one who actually
put a needle, put an electrode in,

in there and turned on the juice.

Can you keep pushing this yourself?

Yes, sir.
All right, push this button.

'They had these little boxes'

and they had the electrodes
in their head.

Whenever they felt they needed
a little goose or something,

again I'm simplifying it,
but they could press it.

All right, push this button.

You know how to work this.

Heath's early patients were
schizophrenics, severe epileptics
and depressives.

I feel like something is coming on.

All right. Does it feel?
How does it feel? Good or bad? Good.

Good? Yes, sir.

Like the rats,
these human patients were able to
stimulate their own brains

and use this pleasurable sensation
to alleviate their symptoms.

Well, I think it's... I think it's
somewhat of a sexy button. Yeah?

Encouraged by his results,
Heath began to explore ways of using

deep brain stimulation
to create new behaviours.

His most infamous experiment
was on a 24-year-old man

with a long history of depression
who had never had sex with a woman.

He approached Heath
and asked him to change him,

to change his behaviour,

because he was gay
and he wanted to become straight.

At the time, being gay was regarded
as a psychiatric illness,

so Heath agreed.

He wasn't the first to do this,
other people had tried,

but nobody had done so
using electrical stimulation.

Heath implanted a series of
electrodes into the pleasure regions
of the man's brain.

Then he was shown some soft porn.

The idea was to link, in the man's
mind, the pleasure he was getting

from the electrical stimulation
with the heterosexual behaviour

he was watching on the screen.

At the end of the three-week period,
the man reported that he had
growing sexual interest in women.

So Heath decided to go to the next
stage. Now this really is bizarre.

What he did is
he hired a prostitute for $50,

a woman he called
a "lady of the night".

Her job was to have sex
with a gay man

with electrodes
sticking out of his head.

The wires led to recording devices
in the next room,

where the psychiatrists were keeping
a record of what was going on
inside his skull.

Well, astonishingly enough,
I mean, I'm absolutely gobsmacked,

but astonishingly enough,
according to Heath,

intercourse was successful.

In fact, the man said he'd had
so much fun,

got so much pleasure out of it,

he would like to go
and do it again and again.

Unlikely as it sounds,

Heath's use of electrode stimulation
seemed to have worked.

But his patient's desire
to become heterosexual

wasn't entirely fulfilled.

The young man went off
and he did actually begin

an affair with a married woman
that lasted for ten months.

But he also continued
to have sex with men.

So a rather mixed outcome,

and Heath himself never tried
to repeat the experiment.

Huh? Ooh... You all right?
I don't like that.

You don't like that?

Heath's methods were primitive,
but they did pave the way for some
important medical developments.

Today, the technique of deep brain
stimulation has been refined

and improved, and is now used
to treat a range of conditions.

It has been particularly successful
for sufferers of Parkinson's.

Electrodes are placed
in the areas of the brain

that control movement
and help to reduce symptoms.

However, implanting electrodes
involves major surgery
and the risks are considerable.

Although it is a huge improvement
on what went before, electrical
stimulation is still fairly crude.

Even the most carefully positioned
of electrodes

stimulates a large area
of brain matter,

consisting of thousands of cells.

But just recently,
the technology has moved on.

Here at Oxford University,

they have found new ways
to manipulate the brain

and control behaviour using
a technique called optogenetics.

With optogenetics,
scientists can control the brain
simply using light.

I'm here to meet neuroscientist
Gero Miesenbock,

who's been refining his technique
on flies.

Hello, there. Hello.

Michael Mosley. Gero Miesenbock.

I gather you are lord of the flies?

In some circles, I am, yes.

And how many flies do you have here?

We haven't really counted them,
but we have thousands of, erm,

vials like these.

Each vial has maybe 50-100 flies
in them, so you do the math.

It's probably millions
buzzing around somewhere.

Millions. You are lord of the flies!
Yeah.

Miesenbock earned his nickname
through his ability to control and
manipulate the choices flies make.

We've come quite far in controlling
not only simple motor acts

of the animals, but actually their
psychology in rather profound ways.

I don't think of flies
as having a psychology!

You just haven't worked
with them for long enough.

Can we see it in action?

Yeah, let's take a look. OK.

Controlling a fly's psychology
is possible.

Because of the 200,000 or so cells
that make up their brains,

he has managed to isolate a few
that are responsible for learning.

We did find a particular
small group of just 12 cells

lying in the central brain.

These 12 cells
don't dictate behaviour per se.

They dictate whether behaviour
should be changed.

And dictating whether behaviour
should be changed
is a crucial part of learning.

Miesenbock likens the role
of this group of cells
to that of a nagging critic.

Critic is, if you wish, the structure
that holds the key to intelligence.

It's the structure that decides
whether something is good or bad,

whether it's right or wrong.

Sort of the brain's version
of the Catholic Church,

if you're an Austrian like me,

or the superego if you're Freudian
or your mother if you're Jewish.

Miesenbock has
genetically engineered his flies,

so that he can switch on this
negative nagging critical voice

simply by exposing them
to blue light.

When the blue light comes on,
the cells are activated
and the flies start to learn.

The flies are taught to dislike
whatever is in their surroundings

when the blue light is on.
This is then stored as a bad memory.

In this experiment,
the flies are taught to dislike
the smell of liquorice.

Each of these chambers
contains just one fly.

Right. And the fly walks up and down
the length of the chamber.

And, um, the left
and the right half of the chamber

are each filled
with a different odour.

One of these smells a bit like,
as they say, a tennis shoe in July.

Right. And the other one a little
bit like liquorice. Liquorice, OK.

You can see that,
before our optogenetic intervention,

the fly just explores the chamber
in its entirety.

They start off not caring one way
or the other and you're going to
manipulate their choice? Exactly.

When the blue light is switched on,

the chamber is flooded with
the smell of liquorice.

OK, now the effect of this light
is to turn on the 12 cells

of the critic in the fly's brain.

And that then leads to
the implantation of memory. Right.

When the blue light switches off,
the chamber returns
to its original smells.

Tennis shoes on the left,
liquorice on the right.

So now, because of that blue light,

the fly has come to associate
the smell of liquorice

with something it doesn't like,

something it needs to avoid,
something it should avoid. Right.

What you see is, it's backtracking
already. It made a mistake.

It stepped into
the odour of liquorice,
which is on the right here.

Now it's back in tennis shoe,
which is on the left.

And you see, whenever it reaches
the interface between the two odours,
it recoils.

You can almost see how it goes,
"Eugh, this is awful!"

And turns around.
It's very impressive.

The ability of optogenetics
to pinpoint and act
on very specific cells

in the brain suggests
it could be used in the future
for modifying human behaviour.

I think there's medical benefits
in many possible directions.

The neurons that matter
for a particular brain function,

be it appetite control,

mood, anxiety, sleep and wakefulness,
attention, you name it.

But there are
some major obstacles to
optogenetically controlling humans.

I think it's not something
that's around the corner in the next
few years, because, remember,

for optogenetics to work,
you would have to
genetically modify the brain...

Indeed, which we are some
way off doing at the moment.

Exactly. A fly normally doesn't mind,
but I certainly would if

you wanted to implant
light receptors into my brain.

Now, that really was
quite astonishing.

The idea that you can control really
quite sophisticated behaviour in a
fly just by manipulating 12 neurons.

It's astonishing and also
slightly worrying,

because it makes you wonder
whether the same is true of humans.

But I think that, because human
brains are so much bigger and more
complex than insect brains,

it is going to be a long time,
if ever, before technology like that
is applied to us.

I've no doubt the technology used
to study the brain
will continue to advance.

And that in doing so, we will make
giant strides in understanding
the workings of our own minds.

But what I find reassuring is that,
although many people have tried
to manipulate our minds,

the human brain has so far proved
to be too complex to finely control,

our personalities too resilient.

Down the years,
the brain has been pushed around,
probed, drugged and electrified.

But it remains
impressively hard to control,

and I find that very comforting.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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