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

Vol. 10 No. 4 - April 2007

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) 2007 by EEG Spectrum
Intl, Inc. or David Kaiser. All rights reserved.
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Announcements - News
In the Spotlight - Collapse Dynamics
News & Reviews - Books & journal papers
Events & Locations - Conferences, Courses
Last Word - Auto-relation
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Announcements

* Name that feeling: You'll feel better
* Puzzles May Be a Real Brain-Booster
* Stressed-out types at risk for memory problems
* Folic Acid Supplements Cut Stroke Risk
* Study shows children good at approximate math
* The five biggest neuroscience developments of the year

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


Collapse Dynamics
"If there is anyone who is in the sun/ Will you help
me to understand" - lyrics by Joseph Arthur

My son suffers from a communication and cognition
disorder known as autism, a condition in which his
world does not fully overlap with ours. His world
appears to orbit a sun outside of our own, one we
cannot see nor follow, one of immense joy. He is
often the embodiment of bliss, moving and giggling,
swallowed in a light of his own making; and that is
his problem: He rarely drops from his heavenly realm
to receive instruction from this one.

Autistic children show deficits in sociability,
communication, and imaginative play as well as
exhibiting stereotypical motor behaviors. My son is
uniquely hyper-social, constantly seeking interaction
with everyone he finds, making few distinctions
between people, calling girls boys and by the names
of babysitters they resemble. When we are out and
about and I warn him not to "stranger talk", he
approaches everyone just the same, taking a
stranger's hand, hugging "Grandma" at the
supermarket, because to him there are no such things
as strangers.

In actuality, his world orbits not a sun but a black
hole, an infinite collapse, a darkness built not of
evil but of loss, separation, and ultimately
isolation, and he continues to be drawn inwards. He
is in his 9th orbit around our sun but spiraling ever
faster away from it. When he was 3, he underwent 20
sessions of SMR uptraining. I was fortunate to train
him incorrectly on the first day so I knew
immediately how much impact the training had -- all
in the wrong direction. We trained 12-15 Hz up and he
wet his bed that night for the first time in a year
and became aggressive in school. SMR was his beta
rhythm and we had aroused or disinhibited him. So we
lowered the frequency in later training sessions and
some inhibition returned to his nature.
[Wrong-training is a useful lesson for anyone who
thinks neurofeedback is a placebo. A session or two
in the wrong direction -- compel someone into a
neurochemical depression (e.g., downtrained alpha F4,
uptrained alpha F3) -- will open their eyes to the
power of rhythm training.]

I trained him in a car seat, a helpful restraint, but
after 20 sessions on the Neurocybernetics system, he
stared at a filing cabinet instead of the computer
monitor. He had burnt out on the games, which led to
a multi-year hiatus from training as I invented a set
of "Infinite Content" games for him. Last year a
student of mine (Justine Paoletti) trained him
another 20 sessions, mostly to induce rhythmicities
in his temporal poles. He shows very little dominnt
frequency, making the term "dominant frequency"
oxymoronic. Soon after his initial set of training we
discovered that his sleep spindle, and presumably
sensorimotor rhythm, was in the 10-12 Hz range,
overlapping his alpha range -- and this may be common
to autistics.

Autism involves severe disturbances of attention,
often with evidence of compromised temporal lobe
function (Gendry et al., 2005). A careful QEEG
assessment of my son's data showed elevated delta in
his right temporal lobe. Delta activity is perfectly
normal -- for an infant, for cortex prior to
subcortical connection. Apparently this part of his
brain never joined the thalamocortical confederacy
that governed the rest of his cortex; it never
matured past infancy. And it is this area of the
temporal lobe which is important in the formation of
episodic memories, so I suspect his autobiographic
sense of himself is infantile, like a
schizophrenic's. His sense of experience often
collapses to self-referentiality, which is why he
laughs inappropriately, treats others as objects, and
generally has difficulty with social information. His
internal mental representations shout while the
sensory stream from the outside world remains a
whisper. We have to train him to shush his
auto-relational representation and grab hold of those
provided from without, so he can expand his world.

Neurofeedback training has been shown to be
beneficial for seizures, hyperactivity, attention
problems, anxiety, and sleep disturbances (Egner &
Sterman, 2006; Monastra et al., 2005; Hammond, 2005;
Hauri 1981). We evaluated the impact of operant
conditioning of temporal lobe activity on behavioral,
psychophysiological, and neurocognitive function. The
goal was to induce greater rhythmicity to his
anterior temporal poles, especially right sided.

Method
My son was diagnosed at three years of age with
autism and recent training used a 2-channel system.
Feedback images included animals, ocean life,
children playing, and family members. Audio feedback
included statements by his mother such as "you can do
it" or his brother exclaiming "Perfect!" and other
comments and sounds. A Neuro-ABC (Autism Behavior
Checklist), Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist
(ATEC), and WISC digit span were administered pre and
post training.

He underwent 20 half-hour neurotherapy sessions and
was evaluated pre- and post-training. Training
montages were C3-to-contralateral ear for the first 4
sessions and T3-T4 bipolar training for the remaining
16 sessions to address emotional lability. As the
subject's SMR rhythm was atypically slow (cf. Kaiser,
2002), reward band was set at 9-14 Hz, with 2-7 Hz
and 22-30 Hz inhibit bands to control artifact.
Jarusiewicz (2002) also began with a slower SMR
reward band, 10-13 Hz or lower depending upon the
child's condition.

Results
Cognitive & Behavioral Assessments: Forward digit
span improved from 4 items to 5 items after training
(i.e., 35th to 69th percentile improvement for his
age) although the Neuro-ABC and ATEC assessments were
inconclusive.

Behavioral Observations: He was highly engaged by
images and voices of family members. He became much
calmer and less talkative during sessions when
familial stimuli were used as rewards. In addition to
images, the client screen presented filtered EEG
signals and he attended to these complex signals as
he discovered how to alter his breathing to produce
SMR bursts, with subsequent reward, by the 3rd
session. After 19 sessions he showed signs of
improved self-regulation by cleaning up and washing
his hair on his own. Greater rhythmicity was evident
across EEG sites after training.

Operant conditioning of temporal lobe activity
produced signs of EEG and cognitive normalization:
there was increased EEG rhythmicity during baseline
recordings and improvement in memory span
performance. Social functioning was specifically
targeted by temporal lobe training and the use of
social and emotional rewards (e.g., pictures of
children playing, faces, and emotional expressions)
and some improvements were observed in this domain,
although a quantitative assessment of sociality was
not performed. That symptom changes were observed
after only 20 sessions is remarkable and additional
training sessions are recommended as most clinical
studies for this population involve 30 or more
sessions. (This work was part of my student Justine
Paoletti's Senior project for Psychology at RIT.)

In my experience autism is a disorder of agency: too
much agency, too little reception, probably due to
too much testosterone and too little estrogen, a
neuroendocrine disorder with neuroanatomical and
physiological consequences. Inhibition training
(along with connectivity training) ought to be very
useful in addressing hyper-agency, especially if the
area of the cortex disconnected from subcortical
influence can be identified. After a modicum of
training (40 sessions), and a many other
interventions, my son was recently diagnosed with
P.D.D. by one psychiatrist who worked with him
briefly. But this is wishful thinking as my son's
world still orbits that black hole and he may
collapse into infinite auto-relation at any given
moment. Our goal is to slow and reverse his collapse
but only time will tell if we are successful and he
can join the expanding universe.

References

Egner T, & Sterman MB (2006). Neurofeedback treatment
of epilepsy: from basic rationale to practical
application. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, 6,
247-57.

Gendry I, Zilbovicius M Boddaert N, Robel L, Philippe
A, Sfaello I et al. (2005). Autism severity and
temporal lobe functional abnormalities. National
Library of Science Medicine, 58, 466-900.

Hammond DC (2005). Neurofeedback with anxiety and
affective disorders. Child and adolescent psychiatric
clinics of North America, 14, 105-23.

Hauri P (1981). Treating psychophysiologic insomnia
with biofeedback. Archives of Gen. Psychiatry, 38,
752-758.

Jarusiewicz B (2002). Efficacy of neurofeedback for
children in the Autistic Spectrum: A Pilot Study.
Journal of Neurotherapy, 6, 39-49

Kaiser DA (2002). Rethinking Standard Bands. Journal
of Neurotherapy, 5, 87-96.

Monastra VJ, Lynn S, Linden M, Lubar JF, Gruzelier J,
& LaVaque TJ. (2005). Electroencephalographic
biofeedback in the treatment of AD/HD. Applied
Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 30, 95-114.

Paoletti JL & Kaiser DA (2006). Neurotherapeutic
Assessment and Training of an Autistic Individual.
Presented at 37th Assoc. Applied Psychophysiology &
Biofeedback, Portland, OR, April 7.

-DK
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News & Reviews

NEW BOOKS

Not Even Wrong: A Father's Journey into the Lost History of Autism
by Paul Collins
A journey into the realm of permanent outsiders.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1582344787/eegspectrum

Autism and the Myth of the Person Alone
by Douglas Biklen, et al
Confronts misunderstandings and misperceptions about autism.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814799272/eegspectrum

Handbook of Epilepsy Treatment: Forms, Causes and
Therapy in Children and Adults
by Simon D. Shorvon
Recent advances in treatment including new drugs, new
investigations, novel surgical approaches are discussed.
-- www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1405131349/eegspectrum

Soft Bipolar: Vivid Thoughts, Mood Shifts and Swings...
by Charles K. Bunch
Materials to provide outpatient treatment to "soft Bipolar" sufferers.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595348246/eegspectrum

Trends in Brain Research
by F. J. Chen
Newest research on the brain
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1594547955/eegspectrum

Reflections on the Problem of Consciousness
by Errol E. Harris
How does electro-chemical activity in the brain
translate into conscious experience?
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1402043090/eegspectrum

Cannabis : A History
by Martin Booth
From 12th-century Sufi monks to today's druglords, a history of this
plant is discussed.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312424949/eegspectrum

Understanding Nicotine and Tobacco Addiction
by Novartis Foundation
Cigarette smoking kills nearly 5 million people per year worldwide,
and 10 million by 2020.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470016574/eegspectrum

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JOURNAL PAPERS

Quantitative EEG in low-IQ children with ADHD : IQ is not reflected in
EEG
power measures for this population.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16793337

The origin of the focal spike in musicogenic epilepsy. : Right
temporal lobe,
notably the auditory area, is involved in musicogenic epilepsy.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16793574

Affect and the computer game player : In-game reinforcement and skill
impact
affective measures such as excitement and frustration.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16780398

EEG recording during TMS : Two electrode types can be used with TMS: a
conductive-plastic surface electrode with a conductive-silver epoxy
coat and a
subdermal silver wire electrode. After TMS pulses amplifiers recover
within 30 ms.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16793336

Cannabis and neurodevelopment: implications for psychiatric disorders. :
Cannabis use during adolescence can impact cognition, depressive
symptoms,
schizophrenia and substance use disorders in the long term.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16783814

Role of corticothalamic coupling in human temporal lobe epilepsy. :
Overall
increase of synchrony between thalamus and temporal lobe structures
during
seizures is seen, particularly at seizure onset.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16760199

Deactivation of brain areas during self-regulation of SCP : Unsuccessful
regulators fail to deactivate cortex below the training electrode.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16752105

Role of electroencephalography in ADHD : Discusses how EEGs may help
evaluate
ADHD children and those at risk.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16734521

EEG topography and tomography for pharmacodynamics of psychotropic
drugs. :
Shows how pharmaco-EEG topography and tomography assist in
neuropsychopharmacology and clinical psychiatry.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16733939

Functional and Anatomical Cortical Underconnectivity in Autism :
Underconnectivity in autistics was found during challenge, by reduced
synchronization between frontal and parietal areas of activation and
smaller
sections of the corpus callosum.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16772313

Impaired functional connectivity at alpha and theta bands in major
depression. : Right anterior and left posterior brain areas may
discriminate depressive
patients from controls in terms of connectivity.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16779797

Brain maturation in adolescence: neuroanatomy and neurophysiology. :
Slow wave
EEG activity declined in a curvilinear fashion with gray matter volume
during
adolescence in specific area.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16767769

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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)

* Washington DC Jun 21-24
* Denver CO Jul 12-15
* Atlanta GA Jul 26-29

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 San Diego, CA Sep 6-9, 2007
AAPB - www.aapb.org Daytona Beach, FL May 13-18, 2008

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Last Word

Auto-relation

Every Friday in 3rd grade math class (35 years ago)
we would play a game of competitive flash cards. Two
children would stand up and Mrs Thurston, our
teacher, would turn over a flash card with a problem
such as "8x7" If you answered "56" before the girl or
boy standing next to you could, you continued your
turn and stepped to the next row while your opponent
took the open seat beside you. Some minds break out
earlier than others and math is where my mind
emerged. My mental world was individuated at an early
point in development and I suspect much of my sense
of self remains shaped by such early individuation. I
was not able to hide in plain sight as some children
do.

As of late I've returned to 3rd grade, becoming more
mathematically-minded, less narrative minded. I've
been corresponding with a few mathematicians and
physicists via the ArXiv, an online repository of
p/reprints for math, physics, and all things
quantitative. Many of the scientists who work at
uncovering the contours of our universe speak of God
matter-of-factly, without reserve, as they attempt to
look over His/Her shoulder to crib answers off the
Test, this universe, as it were.

Autism, as the name implies, is a severe form of
auto-relation, an inertness, like the noble gases
Argon or Helium which rarely mix with other gases. We
all have degrees of autism in that we all live within
a world of our own making, unshared in the details,
though the gross sweep of events are communal. Like
turtles we all live in our own shell. Some of us poke
our legs and head out very far while others retreat
at the slightest provocation. My autistic son thinks
we inhabit his shell, which is a nice thought, but
not always easy to deal with.

So my brief proof is about auto-relation.
Auto-relation is my term for a number raised to a
power, a number multiplied by itself over and over
again. The most interesting auto-relation is 1 raised
to any power as it remains itself (1) forever.... or
so we thought. I show that it doesn't in my little
proof. (This is not like saying 2+2 = 5 for large
values of 2, but actually using the rules of
mathematics to punch a hole into auto-relation.)

Fortunately my mathematics rarely venture into
concepts beyond the 12th grade level but in this case
I need a little Cantor, which is college sophomore
math (i.e., his work on infinities). And for those
who hate math, rest assured, language is a stronger
form of math than math, as it possesses causality and
agency whereas math is impotent on these matters.
Everything math can do so can language, although math
is often more economic in expression. Language allows
higher forms of relation, as shown by its location in
the brain (i.e., more of its operations are performed
in the front of the brain than math).

I shopped this paper around to a handful of old-guard
mathematicians, which has been interesting. None said
it was wrong (yet?), only that it is unconventional
and enigmatic. Mathematical formulations can be as
beautiful as a sonnet, or more so, given their
universality. My mathematical proof uncovers an
until-now hidden point of creation, and makes a
commentary on autism, although that is hidden in the
equations. An autistic limits his auto-relation and
in doing so, fails to create anything but himself.
Only by making all things you, transfinite
auto-relation, do we make all things.

I can forward my brief paper to whoever cares to read
it, but I can summarize it here.

Entitled "Infinite auto-relation and dimensionality",
using a simple technique of identifying dimensions or
number planes: square-root of -1 = i, square-root
(-i)=j;, sqr (-j)=k, etc., until we've run the
square-root(-...) infinitely so. Now start on i, the
imaginary plane, and ask at what point do we
hyperdimensionally rotate to get to 1, the real
plane. Think of it like a circular table setting,
with your father sitting at your right side, and he
asked to you to pass the potatoes to him, but you can
only pass objects to the left side of the table. Now
the table is infinite in size, infinite place
settings, just like those family clan dinners on
Thanksgiving. My proof looks at how many people or
passes will it take until the potatoes reach him.
Taking the square-root (-(square-root(-x)) is a trick
which forces only leftward passing. And those who
encountered complex math in 11th grade know that the
real and imaginary planes are adjacent, square-root
(-1) = i, which in this analogy means adjacent to the
right.

There are five possibilities for passing the potatoes
leftward to reach my father at my right side: Either
(1) the potatoes can never reach him (the table is
endless but in a way which doesn't include him, which
isn't fair or correct), or (2) the potatoes reach him
and continue leftwards and onwards to me, which mean
they did reach him at some point in the passing, or
(3) the potatoes fall short and remain a few passings
away from him, which means infinity ran out of gas
which it is not allowed to do, or (4) the potatoes
reach me and I am my father, but I am not him so
that's cheating (and doesn't meet the orthogonality
requirement), so what remains is an infinite amount
of passes (called Aleph_0 by Cantor) to reach him.

Simple, but it now places i and 1 in "bidirectional"
relationship with each other, which for some reason
no one took the time in doing. Either one pass to the
right or an infinite amount to the left. Now the
passes (dimensions) were based on my
square-root(-...) trick, and we can rewrite the
formula so (sqr-(sqr-...sqr(-i) = 1 becomes -i = 1
[squared raised to infinity], which means 1 raised to
Aleph-1 + i = 0, so when 1 is multiplied by itself an
infinite number of times (the infinity of the
continuum), it becomes imaginary (i.e., equal to -i).

1^c + i = 0

I've sent it around and no one has found the flaw
(yet?). As my wife would ask, so what? Well, here is
my conclusion:

Infinite auto-relation of a mathematical nature (1
multiplied by itself and itself ...) features
orthogonal extension of similar magnitude. Does a
similar principle of dimensionality and auto-relation
underline nature? Does physical reality necessarily
feature non-physical dimension of comparable
magnitude? Or conversely, does mental auto-relation
necessarily attain physicality at some point? Further
understanding of auto-relation and dimensionality may
shed light on the mind-brain problem, such as how
neurophysical events are associated with qualia
(i.e., mental experience).

Metaphorically, the 1^c is seen by me as God thinking
"I am what I am" an infinite number of times, and
then an infinite number of times beyond that, and in
doing this S/He manifests Him/Herself orthogonally,
with equal strength, as a new plane of existence
which we experience as the universe. More amazing is
when our minds and all those around us are doing
exactly the same thing.

-DK
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