Directed energy weapons that use wave beams to cause pain, and electrical brain stimulation that boosts a soldier's combat ability - it may sound like science fiction warfare, but experts say advances in neuroscience mean it's on the horizon. Rapid progress in the ability to map brain activity and manipulate its responses with stimulants could change the face of warfare, a panel of experts said on Tuesday.

Neuroscientists may one day be able to hear the imagined speech of a patient unable to speak due to stroke or paralysis, according to University of California, Berkeley researchers.

Researchers are working on creating digital avatars, a lifelike digital representation that can continue long after your biological body has decomposed.

Researchers are already using brain-computer interfaces to aid the disabled, treat diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and provide therapy for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Work is under way on devices that may eventually let you communicate with friends telepathically, give you superhuman hearing and vision or even let you download data directly into your brain, a la "The Matrix."

By the year 2020, you won't need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer, say Intel Corp. researchers. Instead, users will open documents and surf the Web using nothing more than their brain waves.

In the last few years, patterns in brain activity have been used to successfully predict what pictures people are looking at, their location in a virtual environment or a decision they are poised to make. The most recent results show that researchers can now recreate moving images that volunteers are viewing - and even make educated guesses at which event they are remembering.

Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, predicted at the TED Global conference that a detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years.

Hackers who commandeer your computer are bad enough but as neural devices become more complicated — and go wireless — some scientists say the risks of “brain hacking” should be taken seriously.

Batallions of super-soldiers could be selected for specific duties on the basis of their genetic make-up and then constantly monitored for signs of weakness, according to new research from the National Academy of Sciences. New advances in the neurosciences will make it possible to predict how soldiers are likely to respond to environmental stresses like extreme heat and cold, or endurance exercises and monitor them during battle.

A team of researchers in Spain has developed a robotic wheelchair that can be controlled by thoughts alone, enabling paralyzed individuals to navigate around buildings on their own.