00:00In 2009, a brilliant neuroscientist vanished without a trace.
00:05He left behind one voicemail.
00:07The brain isn't a machine, it's a weapon.
00:10And someone just figured out how to fire it.
00:13When the police searched his house, they found out why.
00:17Seven years later, he came back, disheveled, paranoid, clutching a black notebook filled
00:23with strange diagrams and lists of names.
00:26He claimed he discovered a visual pattern, a way to hack the human brain.
00:31Their results?
00:32Viewers clicked, bought, and believed what they were told to do without knowing why.
00:38Not with code, not with hypnosis, but through image sequencing and sound manipulation that
00:44bypassed logic and triggered automatic obedience.
00:48Now, most of us think of science fiction when we hear that, but one ad agency was intrigued
00:53enough to test his patterns, but then the notebook vanished.
00:57And so did he, leaving everyone to wonder what neurochain really is, why it works, and how
01:04it's already influencing what you believe.
01:07So, if someone could trick our brains into making the wrong connections, it could have
01:12serious consequences.
01:14They found that even though the images were too quick for someone to consciously see,
01:18they still activated the visual cortex, which sends signals to the rest of the brain.
01:24When we see something straight on, we process it in the left side of the brain.
01:29When we see something out of the corner of our eye, it gets processed on the right side.
01:34In the early 1950s, researchers began showing subjects' images just above and below the threshold
01:41of conscious perception, hoping to influence their emotions or behaviors.
01:46What if instead of trying to trick people into seeing something, you tricked them into not
01:51seeing something?
01:52This became known as the dichotic effect.
01:55One famous experiment flashed the words, drink Coca-Cola at 1,000 images per second.
02:02Our brains naturally try to organize the world by finding patterns.
02:07So, when researchers flashed to different images to either side of the brain, the right side
02:13saw one image and the left side saw another.
02:16They showed volunteers a series of images and sounds, and then asked them questions about
02:22what they remembered.
02:23Some of the volunteers were shown neutral images paired with pleasant music.
02:29Others were shown negative images paired with dissonant sounds.
02:33The scientist who pioneered NeuroChain believed it could be used to program people at a subconscious
02:39level, getting them to buy things, vote for certain candidates, or even believe false information.
02:45Because our brains are always looking for patterns, they try to link the two images together.
02:51Even though subjects couldn't consciously see the message, it still registered in their
02:56brains and influenced their attitudes towards Coke.
03:00There are over 100 billion neurons in the human brain.
03:03For example, if the right side of the brain saw a gun and the left saw a flower, they would
03:09compete for dominance.
03:11If you want to find out, here's a simple test.
03:14Did you see it?
03:16If you did, congratulations.
03:18Your mind is safe.
03:20Watch the next 60 seconds of this video and only count the number of blue squares you see.
03:26Don't try to remember any other colors.
03:28The brain wouldn't perceive either one clearly, but it would start to form a connection between
03:33them.
03:34His research was part of a larger field called NeuroChain.
03:39Basically, scientists were chaining concepts together in the brain by exploiting the way
03:44it processes images and sound.
03:47They all work together to control how we feel and act.
03:51Most of the time, our brains process information outside of our awareness.
03:55We see things, hear sounds, smell odors, and countless receptors send signals to our brain,
04:02which files them away, drawing connections between new information and what we already
04:08know.
04:09These connections drive our decisions, influence our feelings, and ultimately control our actions.
04:15Enter stage left, subliminal messaging.
04:18This was exciting, but researchers soon hit a wall.
04:21Brains are good at blocking out subliminal messages, which made the whole thing kind of
04:27useless.
04:28Fast forward to the 1990s.
04:31Researchers were now scanning people's brains while showing them subliminal images.
04:37At the same time, they noticed something interesting.
04:40The brain reacts differently depending on where it's looking, and that gave researchers an idea
04:46it works like this.
04:47Now, depending on how similar or different those images were, they created a micro-conflict
04:54in the brain, a battle between two different ways of processing the world.
04:58If researchers presented this image sequence often enough, it would eventually become automatic,
05:04meaning that seeing the gun would automatically make you think of flowers and whatever else you
05:09associate with it.
05:10And this brings us back to the missing neuroscientist and his infamous notebook.
05:16Now, no one knows exactly how he did it because he disappeared again after that, but some believe
05:22he created a system to manipulate people by triggering automatic responses in the brain.
05:28In 2016, the ad agency BBH Labs ran some tests of their own.
05:33When they recalled the experience, volunteers described both sets of images as positive,
05:39proving that neurochain could influence how we remember things.
05:43Now, that's pretty scary on its own, but imagine the possibilities if someone took it further.
05:49In fact, many believe he spent his last year searching for the notebook because he realized
05:54how dangerous it was.
05:57And there's no way to tell if it's already too late.
06:00Okay, now pause the video and count the number of blue squares you saw.
06:05If you saw fewer than eight, however, it could mean that neurochain has already infiltrated
06:11your brain.
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