What's New in Neurofeedback
A Monthly Summary of News and Events

Vol. 9 No. 8 - August 2006

This newsletter is sponsored by EEG Spectrum Intl Inc,
a leader in providing clinical service and training
professionals. Past issues available at
http://start.eegspectrum.com/Newsletter/
To subscribe or cancel, see newsletter's end.
Opinions related in this newsletter reflect
author's only. Copyright (C) 2006 by EEG Spectrum
Intl, Inc. or David Kaiser. All rights reserved.
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Announcements - News
In the Spotlight - More about Child Development & Schools
News & Reviews - Books & journal papers
Events & Locations - Conferences, Courses
Last Word - Other People's Words
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Announcements

* Scientists Erase Memories in Rat Brains
* Brain chemical's call to exercise may go unheeded
* Fatherhood May Change the Brain
* Your Brain Boots Up Like a Computer
* Stroke risk peaks every 12 hours
* How the Brain Helps Partisans Admit No Gray
* Men and Women: Different Brains?

All links at: news.yahoo.com/fc/Science/Brain_Research
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In the Spotlight


More about Child Development and Schools

August, the month for vacations, is also my month for
vacating from discussions of the expected (EEG and
neurotherapy) and addressing other issues, some
esoteric, others less so, and this month I revisit
school size once again.

Nearly all educators want smaller schools. Smaller
schools serve our children best. So why then are
public schools so large? How did America go from
English High in 1821, the first public secondary
school in America, to Patrick Henry High in Roanoke,
Virginia with a current enrollment of 1,821 students?

For most of our history America has been a nation of
small schools. The proverbial one-room school house
with a single school marm was synonymous with public
education for most of the past century. In 1910 five
out of six elementary schools employed a single
teacher and most consisted of a single room or two.
By mid-century nearly half of all elementary schools
remained one- teacher schools but circumstances had
already begun to change. Between 1930 and 1970 state
and local agencies closed and consolidation schools
at a record pace, mostly in an effort to increase
resources and improve cost efficiency. But with
school consolidation came crowding, especially as the
general population rose, and along with crowding came
its traditional responses such as competition,
aggression, and violence. Violence in schools has to
some degree become not just tolerated but accepted
and expected - how else can one explain that 738,000
violent crimes were committed at schools last year
with little media attention? More than 30 million
crimes were committed in our public schools over the
past decade. Think about that number. Thirty million!
Children are now more likely to be the victim of a
crime at school than away from school. That is a true
figure. 28 million crimes were committed away from
school against children during the same time frame.

Girls are 17 % more likely to be a victim at school
than away, boys 23 % more likely. Schools were once a
protective haven and parents sent their children
there to keep them safe and off the streets, but now
the streets are safer than the schools. Nearly
three-quarters of public schools will experience one
or more violent incidents this year. Why? What has
happened?

Take the state of California. California once
possessed the best public educational system in the
nation but in the last 20 years the state of
California has built 33 new prisons and a single
university. It increased its juvenile detention
centers by 50 percent over the past five years, or
more when one factors in the dozens of impersonal
mega-schools built during this time. Mega- schools
are high schools with student enrollment above 2,000
and last year 23 new monstrosities were opened
nationwide. Add this to the other 1,414 mega-schools
already operating in this country, and take a look
into one, and the reason for school violence and
dropping test scores and other social ills will
become apparent. We've come a long way from the
one-room school house in only 50 years, but all of it
in the wrong direction. Nearly one in ten public high
schools in America is now a mega-school and one in
four teenagers are now warehoused in a mega-school.
We are building the wrong kind of buildings for our
children.

Some believe that small schools are more costly per
student. But because small schools are more
accountable to students they actually cost
significantly less per graduate than larger schools.
A 1998 study of New York City schools determined that
dropout rates of schools below 600 enrollments were
nearly a third below larger schools and cost less per
graduate than larger schools. The largest public
school in the country, Belmont Senior High in Los
Angeles with an incomprehensible enrollment of 5,410
students consists mostly of freshmen and sophomores
as only 33% of students entering school at this
megaschool graduate. The National Association of
Secondary School Principals now recommends that
secondary schools be capped at 600 students, and the
Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform
recommends a limit of 500 students. Ironically, the
lead advocate for school and district consolidation
would have suggested even smaller enrollments. In
1959 and again in 1967 James Conant, past president
of Harvard University, contended that the small high
school was the number one problem in education and
advocated for its elimination through district and
school consolidation. However small then was 30 in a
graduating class, and he advocated for at least a 100
Seniors in order to provide a diverse curriculum to
equip students to met the challenges of the modern
world. But once a process is started, some of the
original ideas are often lost. Since 1940, 200,000
public elementary and secondary schools have been
whittled down to a third, 65,000 in 2005, despite a
70% increase in population. The number one problem in
education today is the large school.

Children undergo the longest period of socialization
of any animal, a dependency of two decades or longer.
Intelligence, along with the disproportionately large
cortex, is in great part an adaptation to the special
complexities of primate social life. The size of our
brain limits the number of individuals we can
significantly interact with on a regular basis. This
so-called natural group size, when exceeded, is
socially unstable and often results in social
conflict and group splintering. One hundred and fifty
(150) is the size of many hunter-gatherer bands and
horticultural villages, groups humans survived within
for the vast majority of our species' history.
Throughout history when people are faced with too
many faces, too much competition or social
complexity, their response has commonly been to
leave, to separate. Bands and villages splinter into
daughter groups and move apart when there are too
many people to feed and figure out. Humanity spread
across the globe in a relatively short time in part
because of the constant process of division down to
appropriate-sized social groups.


---
Grade size in public high schools as a function of locale (School year 2002).

Locale High schools Median Largest Grade Size
Number Grade Size Size Above 150

City 2,054 408 1,522 93 %
Suburb 3,832 303 1,289 82 %
Town 2,175 159 745 53 %
Rural 4,980 86 1,244 25 %

All Locales 13,041 185 1,522 57 %
---

Primatology, the study of non-human primates,
provides clear and simple insights into adolescent
behavior. All adolescent primates, human or animal,
strive for social status, which is especially true
for males. The use of aggression, even violence, to
improve social status is nothing new to our species.
Witness the current events around the world. How many
violent acts are acts to improve social status? All
of them. The emergence of mega-schools, high schools
with enrollments in the thousands, has simply made
adolescent status competition more lethal and
indiscriminant. Each year nearly 1 in 10 high school
students report being bullied at school, and more
report being threatened or injured with a weapon.
Most teenagers in public high schools today are
surrounded by strangers. Some children thrive in
large anonymous groups, but most do not. Has my child
been harmed by attending a larger school - well, more
to the point, has half of him or her been damaged,
her right (nondominant) hemisphere of the brain, the
social brain. Probably -- if he or she spent any
significant time in such an environment.

Intellectual development necessarily suffers in such
massive social settings as a great proportion of time
and resources are spent maintaining an orderly
learning environment at the expense of learning.
Behavioral regulation through face-to-face
interaction and rapport is beyond the capabilities of
student, teachers, and administrators in larger
schools so formal institutions of security must be
employed. When group size is natural, 150 or less for
adults, we police ourselves. When above, we need police.

A simple test to assess right brain ability in
children (and adults) is the Street Test, a
silhouette closure task (see below or
http://start.eegspectrum.com/Newsletter/street.jpg
) which has been used to identify right hemisphere dominance
in both individuals and cultures. Recent data with
college students which I collected suggests a right
hemispheric decline associated with grade size in
school (see Figure 1).
The right brain is the social brain: inhibit its
development, curb its maturation, and you'll produce
social retardation and conflict, even violence. As I
told my students, tongue in cheek, feel free to use
this data to bring a lawsuit against your school
district for damaging half of your brain.

Figure is of Right Brain performance (smoothed) for 80
college students showing a decline with increasing school size.
<a href="http://start.eegspectrum.com/Newsletter/stresult.jpg">
http://start.eegspectrum.com/Newsletter/stresult.jpg</a>

Items are 1-10 are (1) eagle; violin, dog; horse and
rider; sprinter; (6) rabbit; knight on horseback,
boxers; adult couple; baseball player at bat

-DK
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News & Reviews

NEW BOOKS

Clinical Guide to the Diagnosis and Treatment of
Mental Disorders
by Michael First, Allan Tasman
Practical diagnostic and therapeutic advice to
practitioners involved in treating mental illness.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470019158/eegspectrum

Animal Models of Cognitive Impairment
by Edward D. Levin, Jerry J. Buccafusco
Neurobehavioral research for cognitive impairment.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0849328349/eegspectrum

Theoretical Approaches to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
by Ian Jakes, et al
Review of causal theories for OCD
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/052102739X/eegspectrum

The Serotonin Receptors: From Molecular Pharmacology
to Human Therapeutics
by Bryan L.Roth
Technical monography on role of specific
neurochemistry in therapy.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1588295680/eegspectrum

Processes of Change in Brain and Cognitive
Development: Attention and Performance XXI
by Yuko Munakata, Mark Johnson
Neuroscientific and cognitive investigations into
attention.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0198568746/eegspectrum

Emotions At Work: Theory, Research And Applications For Management
by R. L. Payne
Emotional experience in working environments.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470023007/eegspectrum

Consciousness and Matter in a Bohmian Universe:
Implicate Order Revisited
by PTI Pylkkänen
Physical explanations for mental causation and
related cognitive science and neuroscience issues.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3540238913/eegspectrum

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JOURNAL PAPERS

Composition of brain oscillations in ongoing EEG during major depression
disorder. : Major depression affects brain activity in most of the cortex and
across much of the frequency spectrum.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16860895

Behavioral Electrophysiology of Psychostimulants. : A dopamine-glutamate
interaction influences amphetamine-induced activation of striatal neurons.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16855534

Functional connectivity at EEG alpha and beta frequency bands in
opioid-dependent patients. : Brain functional connectivity was disrupted by
chronic opioid abuse.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16850117

Disordered connectivity in the autistic brain : Autism appears to consists of an
abnormality of information integration that is caused by a reduction in the
connectivity between specialized areas of the brain.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16820239

Intra-Subject Variability in ADHD : ADHD groups are best identified not by mean
performance but variability across the group.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16806097

Imaging cerebral activity in recovery from chronic traumatic brain injury:
Examined the effect of an alternative intervention for TBI and discovered
hindbrain involvement in recovery (cerebellar hemispheres, vermis).
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16808830

Partially enhanced thalamocortical functional connectivity in autism:
Authors argue against general underconnectivity in autism and instead suggest
hyperfunctional subcortico-cortical connectivity, which may compensate for
reduced cortico-cortical connectivity.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16828063

Volumetric alterations of the orbitofrontal cortex in autism. : Autistic
individuals show decreased gray matter volume of right lateral orbitofrontal
cortex.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16863674

Frontal EEG asymmetry and the risk for anxiety and depression. : Frontal EEG
alpha asymmetry was related to risk for anxiety and depression in young adult
females only.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16875773
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Events & Locations

Upcoming Courses

A Pathway to Brain Regulation - Neurofeedback helps improve
neuroregulation. It's used by health care professionals for ADHD,
depression, anxiety disorders, LD, mood disorders, and behavioral
problems. This 4-day course, Neurofeedback in a Clinical Practice,
provides the basis for using Neurofeedback clinically. - *28 CEs

4-Day Comprehensive Course Dates (subject to change)

* Philadelphia, PA Sep 14-17
* Chicago IL Oct 19-22
* Portland OR Nov 16-19
* Los Angeles CA Dec 7-10

Our course is a hands-on experience right from the start. Attendees
consistently say this format is a very good way to learn
Neurofeedback.

"Neurofeedback should be viewed as one of the three essential or
primary forms of intervention - psychotherapy, psychopharmacology,
and Neurofeedback. In my experience, neurofeedback is every bit as
important and powerful as the other two forms of treatment." - Dr.
Laurence Hirshberg of Brown University Medical School, a
psychologist specializing in Developmental Disorders and Autism.

Contact Karie Kramer, our training coordinator, for more information
818-789-3456 ext 847 or see www.eegspectrum.com/ Training

*EEG Spectrum International, Inc. is approved by the APA to offer
continuing education to psychologists. ESII maintains responsibility
for the program.


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Conferences for Neurofeedback Clinicians & Researchers

CONFERENCE LOCATION DATES

ISNR www.isnr.org Atlanta GA Sep 7-10

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Last Word

Other people's Last Words

Keeping with the vacation theme, the last word are
taken from others.


To repeat what others have said, requires education;
to challenge it, requires brains. --Mary Pettibone
Poole

The more you use your brain, the more brain you will
have to use. -- George A. Dorsey

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the
moment you get up in the morning and does not stop
until you get into the office. -- Robert Frost

Estimated amount of glucose used by an adult human
brain each day, expressed in M&Ms: 250 -- Harper's
Index, October 1989

Aristotle taught that the brain exists merely to cool
the blood and is not involved in the process of
thinking. This is true only of certain persons. --
Will Cuppy

A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its
original dimension. --Oliver Wendell Holmes

A scientist will never show any kindness for a theory
which he did not start himself. -- Mark Twain

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to
entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to
success is more important than any other one thing.
-- Abraham Lincoln

If confusion is the first step to knowledge, I must
be a genius. -- Larry Leissner

Success is more a function of consistent common sense
than it is of genius. -- An Wang

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all
that I can borrow. --Woodrow Wilson

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every
four Americans is suffering from some form of mental
illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're
okay, then it's you. --Rita Mae Brown

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery/None but
ourselves can free our minds. --Bob Marley

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the
body treats a strange protein; it rejects it. -- P.
B. Medawar

Your paradigm is so intrinsic to your mental process
that you are hardly aware of its existence, until you
try to communicate with someone with a different
paradigm. --Donella Meadows

Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know
what I am doing. -- Werner von Braun

There's 2 possible outcomes: If the result confirms
the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If
the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've
made a discovery. -Enrico Fermi

The farther the experiment is from theory the closer
it is to the Nobel Prize. -- Frederic Joliot-Curie

The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a
beautiful theory by an ugly fact." -- Thomas Henry
Huxley

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering -- Steven Wright

----end--