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A doctor for the Nxivm sex cult has been charged with carrying out illegal human experiments including "fright studies" showing disturbing gang rape and dismemberment videos.

Brandon Porter, 44, treated followers of a cult - allegedly co-run by Smallville actress Allison Mack - where women were branded and treated as sex slaves, it was claimed.

He allegedly forced members to watch video of the murders and machete dismemberment of four women and violent film clips.

Dr Porter is also accused by a New York state oversight board of running an improper study monitoring the brain waves of people who attended Nxivm programmes.

(Image: Facebook)

He could lose his medical licence is the charges are substantiated, the New York Post reported.

Canadian actress Jennifer Kobelt, a former member of the upstate New York cult, had claimed Dr Porter forced her to watch rape and dismemberment videos for a "fright study" where he monitored her brain activity and facial expressions.

She complained to the state's health department, saying she felt like she was going to vomit and began crying as Dr Porter filmed her reaction to the videos which were played without warning.

(Image: PETER FOLEY/EPA)

She said in a complaint in August last year: “He failed me, not only as a friend but as the medical practitioner I had trusted on numerous occasions with my health while I was in New York."

Ms Kobelt, 28, claimed the "fright study" may have been carried out on as many as 100 people.

The state's Office of Professional Medical Conduct responded the following month saying it would not investigate the claims.

(Image: Artvoice/Youtube)

However it has now charged Dr Porter with a number of offences including moral unfitness, gross negligence and gross incompetence, the Post reported.

He allegedly showed cult members video of the four women being murdered and film clips showing an African-American man being stomped by a Nazi, a conscious male being forced to eat his own brain matter, and a graphic gang rape.

His is also accused of carrying out improper studies on obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourette's syndrome, and failing to report an outbreak of illness at a Nxivm event in 2016.

(Image: FBI)

Dr Porter is said to have resigned from his job at St Peter's Hospital in Albany and abruptly moved out of his home in Clifton Park along with his wife and children as allegations began to emerge last year.

New York's attorney general's office is investigating a non-profit foundation associated with Nxivm that allegedly sponsored brain and behavioral studies without oversight, the Times Union reported.

Dr Porter was among those ordered to hand over documents and video relating to the research.

(Image: Getty)

The cult's leader, self-help guru Keith Raniere, 57, has been in jail since he was arrested in Mexico in March on charges including sex trafficking.

Mack, 35, was arrested in April and is living with her parents in California under house arrest. She is accused of recruiting women into a sex trafficking operation.

Women were lured into the cult where they were ordered to have sex with Raniere, branded with his initials and put on extreme diets, prosecutors allege.

Investigators have said they anticipate there will be additional arrests and charges.