9 Movie Mad Scientists That Might Have Been Onto Something

9. Jekyll And Hyde - Brain Control

The story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is well known to have been inspired by a real-life person named William Brodie - a well respected cabinet maker who also led a double life as a burglar. The story has become synonymous with dissociative identity disorder, or split personality. Sufferers of dissociative identity don't exactly have much control over it, but would it be possible to completely transform a person's personality artificially?

Way back in the 1960s, a scientist by the name of José Delgado managed to do just that in a particularly pissed off bull.

Delgado stood, unprotected, in the middle of a bull ring in Cordova, Spain. The young bull that was in there with him began to charge and, at the last possibly second, Delgado pressed a button on the remote control in his hand, and the bull stopped in its tracks, walked in a little circle and went away.

Delgado's secret was that he had implanted a "stimoceiver" in the bull's brain. A little, remote controlled computer chip that used electrical pulses to stimulate different parts of the brain, capable of eliciting feelings of rage, calm and even love.

The research was largely rejected at the time, viewed as an evil mind-control scheme. For all we know, it was, but the idea of influencing people's behaviour with electrical signals has been picked up again in recent times and could potentially lead to the treatment of all kinds if neurological and mental disorders.