The National Research Council in America has published a guide for spooks on how developments in cognitive neuroscience are likely to affect national security. Many of the highlighted areas will come as no surprise to our readers: cognitive enhancers, lie detection via brain imaging, brain-machine interfaces and artificial intelligence are all predicted to play a role in the next two decades.

More refreshing perhaps is the report's attention to the 'cultural underpinnings of neuroscience'. The report explains: 'There is a growing need these days to understand hearts and minds at a strategic level because of their potential to exacerbate insurgencies and other problems.' The report continues: 'Crosscultural comparative research can be pursued to test whether the brain function and human behavior assumed by European and American psychological models are universal.'

Several esteemed American psychologists were involved in drafting the report, including Michael Gazzaniga, Elizabeth Loftus and James Blascovich. 'We were quite a diverse group,' Professor Loftus told The Psychologist. 'In addition to psychologists, there were experts in pharmacology, medicine, molecular biology, human-machine interactions, brain imaging and more. We were trying to anticipate where the world might be in the next 20 years. What could an enemy be capable of doing to us that we have not yet thought about, and how can we prepare ourselves to respond for the safety of our society?'

The full report 'Emerging cognitive neuroscience and related technologies' is available online.