Like many other very experienced neurofeedback practitioners, I have
switched to Zengar NeuroCAREPro.  It is simple to learn and to use once it
is correctly installed on your computer, and it very reliable as a
clinical tool because it feeds back to the brain information about signal
variability, which was years ago identified as a key measure of
self-regulation, rather than specific amplitude or coherence measures.

I tried for years to use symptom and QEEG-based protocols, but the problem
with those is how plodding a way of working they are.  As with medication
trials, it can take hours, days or weeks to "get it right."  During that
time, it is easy to lose the client's confidence because of setbacks,
interruptions to or lack of progress.

Zengar NCP is reliable because it leaves to each brain the question of
exactly what needs to be corrected.  The brain is a far more efficient
correlation machine than you or I can possibly be no matter how expert we
become in referring to databases of QEEG norms or EEG-equivalents of
neuropsychological symptoms.

ZNCP simply triggers the brain's own "orienting response" whenever any of
the brain's self-regulatory mechanisms go off-line.  The brain checks out
what the problem is within itself, and begins to self-correct.  How the
program knows when a self-regulatory mechanism goes offline:  by measuring
changes in signal variability (more detail on which, below).  How it
triggers the orienting response:  by creating a very brief pause in a
musical phrase when variability changes.  (The client or therapist chooses
the music being played from either a CD or music files on the
practitioner's computer.)  The unexpected break in the rhythm or
continuity of phrase triggers the orienting response, upon which the
brain automatically scans itself (as it always does when something
unexpected happens; after all, self-scanning is the only way brains figure
out what's going on in their environment, since all sensory information
about the outside world is represented inside as neuronal changes).

How ZNCP measures and feeds back signal varibility:  it continually
measures, from the center of both left and right hemisphere (C3 and C4,
the central placements over the sensory-motor strip), the signal amplitude
of eight different frequency bins, and certain of the relationships
between left and right (e.g. difference, I presume, although the exact
parameters of the four "Zengar" protocols are proprietary), and derives
variability measures over a moving time-window.  Whenever there is a
change in signal variability above or below the recently previous
differences measured, the music (and/or visual signal; one can use a movie
or AVI file or G-force abstractions) is stopped for a brief instant.

The therapist's role, at present, is simply to be present with the client
as witness to their journey, and to maintain the parameters of the
feedback so that the stops do not become too regular and frequent, which
would cause the brain to habituate to and ignore them, nor too long, which
would make listening to the music annoying because of all the pauses, nor
too seldom, which might provide too little information for a session to be
meaningful.

The down side of NCP is that it requires a high-end computer because of
the graphic, audio and rapid, concurrent calculation demands, adding to
the expense.  And some people find the personality of its inventor, Val
Brown, pompous.  But he really has come up with a brilliant system, and
perhaps deserves his pride of leadership and frustration with the
obtuseness and hostility of some of his critics.  I have followed the
development of what is now Zengar NCP over many years.  It grew
organically, through Val's systematically integrating several
then-established (or neglected) but competing neurofeedback protocols
(e.g. beta, SMR, alpha-theta and the then-frequently-ignored earlier
discoveries about 40-Hz and single-Hz frequency bins; Val himself, as far
as I know, developed 7/14/21 Hz work from Mike Tansey's observations about
the emotional concomitants of particular single-Hz bins); exploring the
strengths of Thought Technology's original Biograph program ( e.g. its
ability to feed back, with a variety of both visual and auditory signals,
more than the three threshold settings and frequency bins that were then
standard; to set moving thresholds; to allow the therapist to view a
full-length, two-channel "frequency mirror" or other technical signal info
on one screen while giving the client simple visual images of specific EEG
frequency-bin changes on the other; to track variability; etc.); finally
inventing his own program when he had fully tested the limits of Biograph,
and increasingly automating NCP "journey" choices to free the therapist to
be more psychically present with the client.   Other instrument
manufacturers are now inadvertently flattering Val by incorporating
derivations of variability (e.g. "Z-score" or variability feedback)
capabilities into their programs, automating protocol choices, etc.

So, I've finally officially joined the NCP bandwagon.  If I were still
using QEEG-based protocols (as I suppose I will eventually again if some
client in the future isn't satisfied with the effects of NCP), I would go
with Thornton's Activation QEEG (provided my DOS-based W98 computer and
Lexicor equipment hold up), Peter Van Deusen's similar mini-Q procedures
for testing under cognitive challenge, or Sue Othmers' symptom-based
protocols, patiently derived from the original simple SMR and beta
protocols of Sterman, Lubar and Tansey and alpha (or alpha-theta)
protocols of Kamiya, Fahrion and Peniston/Kulkosky over many years of
experience with a wide variety of severely disabled clients. (See
http://www.eegspectrum.com/Applications/Intro/UltimateSelf-Help/HistoryofEEGBiofeedback/
for a good summary-history of neurofeedback).

Anyway, if you can invest the bucks in a fancy new computer, I'd vote for
Zengar.  Especially if you're new to neurofeedback, it is truly turn-key;
there is less to learn to get up and running (though eventually you might
want to learn more mathematics if you're curious about some of the
instrument's assessment capabilities) and you can be doing amazing work to
help your clients without having to know a lot of neurophysiology, without
investing in QEEG equipment and learning how to paste 23 electrodes in the
right place with the right impedances, and without sending clients out for
a $1200 QEEG evaluation before you work with them.

Julie