became engulfed in ethical controversies. Because he published primarily in Spanish journals, his work fell into obscurity. In Madrid, Delgado switched his focus to non-invasive brain-stimulation methods, anticipating current exploration of techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation. A cover story in The New York Times Magazine had just hailed him as the “impassioned prophet of a new ‘psychocivilized society’ whose members would influence and alter their own mental functions.” One reason may be that in 1974 he left Yale, his base for more than two decades, to return to Spain, his birthplace. With the push of a button, he could evoke smiles, snarls, bliss, terror, hunger, garrulousness, lust, and other responses.ĭelgado described his results in hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and in a widely reviewed 1969 book, but these are rarely if ever cited by modern researchers. He also implanted radio-equipped electrode arrays, which he called “stimoceivers,” in dogs, cats, monkeys, chimpanzees, gibbons, and humans. In 1965, The New York Times reported on its front page that he had stopped a charging bull in its tracks by sending a radio signal to a device implanted in its brain. In part because it was relatively unencumbered by ethical regulations, Delgado’s research rivaled and even surpassed much of what is being done today. Long a McGuffin of science fictions, from The Terminal Man to The Matrix, brain chips are now being tested as treatments for epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, paralysis, depression, and other disorders. Delgado pioneered that most unnerving of technologies, the brain chip, which manipulates the mind by electrically stimulating neural tissue with implanted electrodes. Once among the world’s most acclaimed scientists, Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado has become an urban legend, whose career is shrouded in misinformation. An article on describes him as a “madman” who believed that “ no human being has an inherent right to his own personality.” Given widespread interest in and misinformation about Delgado, whose work prefigures current research on brain implants (see “Further Reading”), I’m posting an edited version of my 2005 article. Delgado fascinates conspiracy theorists, too. I keep hearing from journalists and others wanting more information on Delgado, whom I interviewed in 2005 and who died in 2011.
It focuses on Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado, a pioneer in brain-stimulation research. “The Forgotten Era of Brain Chips,” published in Scientific American in October 2005, has provoked as much interest as anything I’ve ever written.
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