Page 72 - JSOM Winter 2023

A Brief Primer on the Concept of the
Neuroweapon for U.S. Military Medical Personnel

Michael A. Washington, PhD*; Dung T. Dinh, MD;
Charmaine Ibarra, MS; Siang C. Kua, MD

ABSTRACT
The malevolent application of neuroscience is an emerging in brain structure. The fog of war and the cognitive overload
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threat to the U.S. military. At present, U.S. military medical resulting from the combat environment often make it difficult
personnel are not capable of adequately diagnosing or treat- for military decision-makers to extract the relevant signals
ing the injuries and illnesses that may result from exposure from the environment necessary to build reliable models used
to potential neuroweapons. This fact was illustrated in 2016 to derive appropriate responses during times of conflict. In
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when U.S. diplomats serving in Havana, Cuba reported hear- future peer and near-peer conflicts, the ability to master the
ing strange noises accompanied by a constellation of unex- cognitive domain and protect friendly forces from intentional
plained health effects. Similar incidents have been reported attacks on their cognitive states might become essential factors
in China and Russia. Although various hypotheses have been in the winning or losing of individual battles and, by exten-
put forward to explain these symptoms, none of them have sion, in the winning or losing of a major war.
4,5
been verified. The reported symptoms were analogous to the
physiological responses that have been produced in the lab- Between 2016 and 2017, more than a dozen U.S. diplomats
oratory by exposing volunteers to pulsed microwave energy. stationed in Havana, Cuba, began experiencing strange symp-
However, these incidents of undetermined origin demonstrate toms that included hearing chirping sounds, experiencing
that widespread neurological illness can be disruptive to U.S. increased anxiety, and having disruptions in cognition. Al-
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government operations and that it is currently not possible to though the causes of these symptoms have not been identi-
identify the cause, determine the correct treatment, or ascribe fied, it has been speculated that they may have been the result
attribution to potential neuroweapon use in an overseas set- of a directed energy attack on the human nervous system.
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ting. Since it is likely that Special Operations medical person- Similar symptoms have also been experienced by U.S. person-
nel will be among the first to respond to neuroweapon attacks nel stationed at the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China, and
in the deployed environment, it is essential that they be made in Russia. These incidents have prompted a series of official
aware of this emerging threat and that efforts be made to in- investigations and have received the attention of scientific
corporate potential directed energy neuroweapons and other researchers in both academia and government. 8–10 A recently
neuroweapon configurations into future Chemical, Biological, released intelligence assessment of Havana syndrome has in-
Radiological, Nuclear, and high yield Explosives (CBRN-E) dicated that there is a low probability of foreign adversary
training modules. The intention of this article is to introduce involvement. This assessment was based in part on an ap-
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the concept of the neuroweapon to military medical personnel parent lack of detectable foreign adversary activity in the area
and to provide a brief review of the relevant literature. during the incident, the inability to identify an adversary with
a technology capable of causing the reported symptoms, and
Keywords: neuroweapon; neuroscience; Havana syndrome; a lack of coherence among the symptoms as described by the
microwave weapon; neurological injury victims. However, it is interesting to note that a previous in-
telligence assessment indicated that pulsed radiofrequency en-
ergy, sonic energy, or other forms of radiation were plausible
proximate causes of the syndrome. While future analyses
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Introduction
may reveal the true cause of Havana syndrome, it is certain
The central nervous system is a complex information process- that the disruptive nature of these events is being monitored by
ing network. It collects and integrates information from the en- state and non-state adversaries and that technologies currently
vironment through the sense organs and uses this information exist that can mimic the symptoms of Havana syndrome. 13,14
to derive appropriate physical and physiological responses. In addition, there is historical precedent for foreign adversaries
During acts of cognition, internal mental representations of exposing U.S. personnel to directed energy pulses. From the
the physical world are constructed. These models are then late 1950s until the mid-1970s, the Soviet Union irradiated the
used to evaluate the current physiological and environmental U.S. embassy in Moscow with microwave radiation. The mo-
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state, predict future states, and test possible responses. It is tive behind this activity has never been identified, but it serves
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well known that the stress of war can degrade the ability of as an illustration that irradiation of embassy personnel is not
the nervous system to acquire, process, and store information beyond the ethical standards of some state actors. If these
and that this degradation can be based on physical alterations events are evaluated through the lens of the rapid advances in
*Correspondence to michael.a.washington120.mil@health.mil
LTC Michael A. Washington, CPT Dung T. Dinh, CPT Charmaine Ibarra, and CPT Siang C. Kua are all affiliated with the Dwight D. Eisenhower
Army Medical Center, Fort Gordon, GA.

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