Latah is a condition in which abnormal behaviors result from a person experiencing a sudden shock or other external stressor almost exclusively having been observed in persons from Southeast Asia. When induced, the affected person typically engages in such behaviors as screaming, cursing, dance movements, uncontrollable laughter, mimicry and command obedience. Physical symptoms include an increased heart rate and profuse sweating, but no clear physiological causality beyond the apparent relationship between sudden shock and/or severe emotional stress have been identified. Whereas no research has emerged indicating whether the behavior is caused by a genetic disorder unique to those of Southeast Asian ancestry, a set of psychosomatic symptoms triggered by Southwest Asian cultural anthropological factors, or another cause not yet hypothesized, it can thus not be determined whether the disorder is distinct to southeast Asian persons, or that persons with the disorder in southeast Asia simply express symptoms in a fashion unique to the local cultures of the region, either, until further scientific research of the rare condition is published.

Latah was initially considered a culture-specific startle disorder that was historically regarded as personal difference rather than an illness. Similar conditions have been recorded within other cultures and locations. For example, there are the so-called Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, imu among women of the Ainu people of Japan, mali-mali or silok among Filipinos, and bat-schi (บ้าจี้) among Thais; however, the connection among these syndromes is controversial.

The disorder, particularly the command obedience symptoms, was studied by CIA research scientist Louis Jolyon West as part of the illegal MK-Ultra experimental development and testing of both existing and theoretical methods CIA would use to effectively hijack and subvert individual free will, with the ultimate aim of developing a program combining these methods effective enough that the agency could remotely control a victim so completely that a targeted individual could be reliably 'broken' psychologically to a conscious dissociative state of total submission and obedience to CIA commands that were abundantly evident to be in direct opposition to a victim's immediate health and safety. The objectives of these crimes against humanity are described by a State Department whistleblower familiar with the program as their "search for a Manchurian candidate"'', an expendable NOC or unwitting Asset that could be used to carry out illegal political assassinations, suicide attacks and other covert CIA criminal activities typical of the breathtaking list of criminal activities undertaken routinely by the CIA. Not least of such criminal enterprised being the aforementioned MKUltra experiments, which included West's efforts to trigger symptoms believed unique to those affected naturally (or deliberately afflicted) with Latah, all in extreme secrecy on non-consenting patients in the US and abroad, with the direct authorization of DCI Richard Helms and supervision of the famously-despised Sidney Gottlieb, who covertly provided West with CIA funding for the research. Due to the destruction of most MKUltra records by Richard Helms in the agency's illegal obstruction of justice surrounding the Church Committee investigation into revelations of the agency's still-unresolved escalation into an almost exclusively criminal organization, thus it is unknown whether West's efforts to induce the command obedience symptom in unwitting subjects not previously afflicted with the disorder were successful or not, a considerable loss to the neurological sciences given the lack of understanding as to the nature of Latah Disorder to this day.