Question: Can you change a brains behaviour to be able to control what the animal does??

Ian Simpson answered on 21 Jun 2014:

Perhaps not in the way your “evil plans” would like, but broadly speaking yes. What I’m thinking of are a series of experiments where animals can be trained, like when you train a dog. Typically using positive and negative re-enforcement i.e. treat when you’re good, naughty step when you’re bad. We do this with our children and more subtly with adults to although sometimes we may not be aware that we’re doing it.

From a neuroscientists perspective the brain produces dopamine (a neurotransmitter) in response to positive stimulation and learns to associate the associated happiness with the stimulus. This is a bit of a simplification of what is quite a controversial field, but is pretty well supported by evidence.