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

Vol. 11 No. 11 - November 2008

This newsletter is sponsored by EEG Spectrum International, Inc.,
the leader in providing neurotherapeutic services and training professionals.  

 Past issues are available at http://start.eegspectrum.com/Newsletter/
To subscribe via yahoogroups.com or cancel a subscription, see info at the bottom.
Opinions in this newsletter reflect those of the author only.
Copyright (c) 2008 by ESII or David Kaiser, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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Announcements - News
Spotlight     - Underdeveloped Social Intelligence
Reviews       - Books & journal papers
Events        - Conferences, Courses
Last Word     - A Spiritual Trainer 
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  Announcements  (Neuroscience news articles)

-The Psychology Of Deja Vu
-'Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon' Game Provides Clue To Efficiency Of Complex Networks
-Tiny Sacs Released By Brain Tumor Cells Carry Information That May Guide Treatment
-'Super' Aged Brains Reveal First Secrets Of Sharp Memory In Old Age
-How Is Our Left Brain Is Different From Our Right?
-Brisk Walk Could Help Chocoholics Stop Snacking
-Drug-related Preference In Cocaine Addiction Extends To Images
-Unraveling Mystery Of Brain Aneurysms
-Protecting Neurons Could Halt Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Diseases
-How Our Senses Combine To Give Us A Better View Of The World
-Multiple Sclerosis: In The War Against Diseases, Nerve Cells Need Their Armor
-Light Triggers New Code For Brain Cells
-Brain Implants May Help Stroke Patients Overcome Partial Paralysis
-Primary Insomnia Linked To Neurochemical Abnormality In Young And Middle-aged Adults
-Computerized Carer Lessens Dementia Load

Links at http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/mind_brain/

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In the Spotlight

Underdeveloped Social Intelligence

   The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence. -- Robert J. Shiller

Is it evolutionarily more useful to develop an understanding of others (social relationships) than to recognize the tracks of a python?

This question divides social species from nonsocial species. The majority of species on our planet are not social and those that are social are more often herd animals than social, unconnected to brethren mentally and emotionally, although physically they may share the same space. Some believe that primate intelligence originally evolved to solve social problems and was only later extended to problems outside the social domain. Others argue that natural selection for intelligence may have acted strongest in the social domain to explain our species' current aptitude for theory of mind and success in the food chain. Group life exerted strong selective pressures during primate evolution on the ability to form complex associations, reason by analogy, and make inferences and predictions concerning the behavior of fellow group members. Two concepts underlie intelligent behaviors in primates and other species: (1) the ability to recategorize information, and (2) the capacity to prioritize concepts, to organize concepts hierarchically. Both of these abilities likely developed in primates to solve social problems. Successful behavior in a social group requires one to prioritize individuals as tools, threats, etc. And one attains many perspectives of other individuals in a group through different encounters. A social entity is different from inanimate objects or even other animals, prey or predator, in that its function changes over time. The capability to recategorize the function, threat, affiliations, of other primates in one's group are extremely valuable. Much of the intelligence exhibited by primates is nearly entirely solely to solving social problems, which may explain why it took three million years from our common ancestors with apes before fire was harnessed and another two million years before we advanced tools and artwork were engineered by our ancestors.

Primates may have adaptive specialization in the social domain which is rarely extended to other domains, what some call "laser-beam" intelligence. "Laser-beam" intelligence is reminiscent of savant skills in autistics, abilities which are extraordinarily powerful when focused in a single domain but much less developed outside this narrow sphere. The social skills of human, as evidence by the human ability to maintain alliances despite rare contact, may be such an example, along with the slowness of environmental problem-solving that continues to this day.

Attribution of mind to others increases as one's communications became more involve in one's mental experiences. Dennett (1987) has a useful method for investigating communication and the attribution of mental states in nonhuman species and nonverbal humans. First we assume that an individual may possess an intentional system, capable of mental states like beliefs and desires. Next we attempt to determine the level of intentionality of this system. Zero-order intentional systems have no beliefs or desires at all. For instance, a vervet monkey may make a specific alarm calls because it is frightened and aroused and different predators evoke different fears and each fear elicits a characteristic alarm call and a characteristic escape response. This would classify the vervet monkey alarm call systems as zero-order. Alternatively, a first-order intentional system has beliefs and desires, but it doesn't have beliefs about beliefs (metacognition). In this case, a vervet gives a leopard alarm call because it believes that there is a leopard nearby or because it wants others to run into trees. The vervet has no conception of his audience's mind, nor does it have the ability to makes the distinction between his own and another animal's beliefs. Alternatively, a second-order intentional system has some conception about both his own and other individuals' states of mind. The creature gives a leopard alarm call because he wants other vervets to believe that there is a leopard nearby. A third-order intentional system makes an alarm call because he wants other vervets to believe that he wants them to run into trees, and so forth. Linguistic communication may require at least third-order intentionality on the part of speaker and listener (Cheney & Seyfarth, 1990); but this might be an overestimation (e.g., cultures in which mental attribution of others is unwelcomed). According to Grice (1988), reciprocal altruism and the detection of cheaters that it implies was responsible for the rapid evolution of cognitive capacities exhibited by higher primates. A third-order intentionality is necessary to detect cheaters and to gain advantages as a cheater (e.g., the recipient wants the altruist to believe that he intends to reciprocate).

Most primates possess incomplete theories of mind, if any at all. For example, vervet monkeys will continue to give alarm calls regardless of whether their audience is already aware of danger (i.e., long after everyone has seen the predator). Monkeys often use third parties as social tools, while apes rarely do (Whiten & Byrne, 1988). For example, a baboon may feign injury or insult from another baboon in order to get his alliance partner to attack the supposed attacker. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, rarely attempt to recruit allies on a regular basis using such ploys.

Deception implies that one has attributed a mind to another, a mind that can be deceived. Chimpanzees have been known to deceive or attempt to deceive others by means of information concealment. For instance, a 9-year-old chimp named Figan would give a loud food calls when he was given bunch of bananas (Goodall, 1986). Consequently, the whole group heard the cries and converged on his site, leaving few bananas for him. The next time Figan was given a bunch of bananas, he remained silent (though Goodall reports hearing faint choking sounds in throat) and ate bananas undisturbed. In a direct examination of deception, Woodruff and Premack (1979) had a common chimpanzee shown which in two containers food was hidden. Following this, either a cooperative trainer (who when showed the food by the chimpanzee always shares it) or an uncooperative trainer (who when shown the location of the food, always eats it himself) enters the area. The chimpanzee always provided correct information to the cooperative trainer, but acteddifferently with the uncooperative trainer. First, the chimpanzee withheld information by turning his back and sitting motionless so as not to cue trainer to where the food was hidden. Later, after many more trials, some of the chimpanzees would gesture or point to the wrong container. So it is clear that active deception can be generated by the 400-gram chimp brain.

However a true theory of mind may elude such a small brain. Pedagogy or teaching is a measure of mental attribution; in order to teach correct information to another, one must be attribute false information to this individual. In most mammals, teaching is stereotypic and is not sensitive to a particular audience's ignorance. There are some anecdotes of teaching by chimpanzees (e.g., Washoe was observed molding the hands of her adopted's son for signs, Fouts, Hirsch, & Fouts, 1982). However, chimpanzees do not usually inform others in ignorance of information which they possess (Premack, 1986). Premack (1988) interprets their behaviors as if each chimpanzee can create a desired state of mind in others, but they are less adept at recognizing situations when other chimpanzees have beliefs which are incompatible with their own. The apparent lack of positive commands in nonhuman primates (equivalent to "yes!" in humans) is strong evidence that apes have difficulty ascribing different beliefs to other minds, and the general lack of pedagogy among nonhuman primates suggests the same.

Self-awareness is characteristic of human mental experience and is closely related to the attribution of mind in others. Evidence of self-aware behaviors are few but interesting in apes. Kanzi sometimes signed bad before doing something for which he would subsequently be punished (Savage-Rumbaugh et al., 1988). That a chimpanzee can refer to his own name (in solving tests and answering questions) implies some degree self-awareness. Gallup developed a mirror test to detect self-awareness in nonhuman primates. An animal is anesthetize and a mark is placed on his forehead. When he awakens, he is shown his reflection in a mirror. If he react to the mark (rubs or presses it), Gallup (1982) argued that this demonstrated self-awareness. Gorillas fail the mirror test, as do children below the age of two (Gallup, 1982). It could be that gorillas are not interested in superimposed body marks and/or lack motivation to respond. Monkeys can use to learn mirrors to manipulate objects and monitor behavior of others, but they also fail the test. The mirror test may indicate bodily awareness or representation more than conceptualization of a self. Pretend play in younger monkeys and apes indicates some self-recognition and self-awareness in that juveniles must be able to distinguish what is real and what is imagined; they must entertain multiple representations of an object or event at the same time.

For therapists, the value of ascertaining a client's theory-of-mind status, even of an adult, may be helpful in understanding the root of one's mental health problems. Autistics notably lack several aspects of theory of mind, and brain-injured adults may lose the tools, but I suspect that a large range of people have underdeveloped social intelligence and rarely move beyond a basic social compass to understand and empathize with their fellow humans and that is how they wind up in emotional or social straits. To take the perspective of another for even a few moments, a few steps in a sequence of events, is very difficult, especially if we are the party being interacted with. Many therapists excel at showing an individual where his or her thinking may be limited, where selfhood and other motives were not fulled extended to another.

Below is a nice summary of those aspects of social intelligence more under volitional control in humans:

Evidence of Mind From Gallup (1985)

trait	hard-wired analog	self-aware instance of mind
attribution	unlearned reactions to conspecific threat postures and predators	attribution of intent, and responsibility; anthropomorphism
deception	mimicry	intentional distortion &/or withholding of information
reciprocal	alarm calls(?)	reciprocal aid giving; altruism, selectively withholding aid from cheaters and stealers
empathy	responses to appeasement gestures and infant distress calls	providing solace to injured conspecifics
pretending	injury & death feigning	certain forms of deception; multiple representation of event

-DK

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Reviews

 BOOKS

 The Neurology Of Autism
by Mary Coleman (Editor)
Medical/educational therapies and a detailed evaluation of alternative therapies.

 Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine, 4th ed.
by MH Kryger, T Roth, & WC Dement
For trainees in sleep medicine and a standard reference.

 Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Bipolar Disorder, Second Edition
by Monica Ramirez Basco, A. John Rush
CBT for bipolar disorder.

 Freedom And Neurobiology: Reflections on Free Will, Language, And Political Power
by John R. Searle
Free will debate, relevant to understanding brain function and mental operations.

 The Cognitive Neuroscience of Human Communication
by Vesna Mildner
One of the most exciting applications for neuroimaging is in the field of human communication - disorders and normal development.

-Links to books at http://start.eegspectrum.com/Newsletter/oct2008.htm#section2 
 
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JOURNAL PAPERS

Abnormal cerebral connectivity during emotional processing in autism : Abnormal long-range right-brain connectivity may explain socio-emotional troubles that characterize autistic pathology.

EEG Patterns in Mild Cognitive Impairment : Pattern recognition of EEG may be used to classify dementia/MCI patients.

Emergence of Posttraumatic Distress in Later Life : Reemergent posttraumatic stress disorder does not appear to be a unique subtype of PTSD among elderly people.

Abnormal cerebral connectivity during emotional processing in autism : Abnormal long-range right-brain connectivity may explain socio-emotional troubles that characterize autistic pathology.

Perceived peer delinquency and genetic predisposition for substance dependence vulnerability. : Affiliation with delinquent peers moderates contribution of genetic and environmental risks to substance dependence vulnerability

-Links to articles at http://start.eegspectrum.com/Newsletter/oct2008.htm#section2

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 Events

Upcoming Courses

4-Day Comprehensive Course on Neurotherapy (dates subject to change)
-Glendale CA Dec 11-14
-Orlando, FL Jan 15-18

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, Brown University Medical School, 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.
 

Conferences for Neurofeedback Clinicians & Researchers

AAPB - aapb.org Albuquerque, NM Apr 2-4 

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  Last Word

A Spiritual Trainer

I began work on what I call a "Spiritual Trainer," trying to identify EEG spectral coefficients prominent during or unique to religious mystical experience. I suspect that bicoherence or spectral entropy, measured used in indexing unconsciousness for anesthesia, may be useful, though in the opposite direction of unconsciousness.

Mario Beauregard and Vincent Paquette collected EEG from Carmelite nuns during recall of a past mystical experience and they have kindly shared their data so I can rummage through it. They used three conditions, a baseline resting state, a "human" condition in which they recall a past positive experience with a person and the feel of human love, and the "Unio Mystica" condition in which the nuns, renown for their mysticism in Quebec, recall past positive experience with God and feel the unlimited love. They recently published their analysis of power and coherence in Neuroscience Letters (2008, volume 444). The mystical recall condition exhibited greater theta power at left medial and midline sites (F3, C3, P3, Fz, Cz and Pz) which may indicate cingulate involvement, and greater gamma1 power at right posterior sites( T4 and P4). They also examined power ratios and discerned higher delta/beta, theta/alpha and theta/beta ratios for several electrode sites. In terms of coherence, FP1-C3 showed greater theta coherence and F4-P4, F4-T6, F8-T6 and C4-P4 greater alpha coherence.

I am reminded of the Landsborough (1987) paper in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry [volume 50, pp 659-64] called "St Paul and temporal lobe epilepsy" in which he argues how the great Christian missionary of the first century may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and the EEG signs that might go with it. Were Paul's ecstatic visions, his conversion on the road to Damascus, the "light from heaven" which went off in his head, a product of TLE? Diagnosing a patient from afar, in time and space, is fraught with uncertainty, but Paul alludes to his illness in his writings and from this sparse evidence we may presume something about his life and his condition. Paul describes an estatic personal experience in his letter to the Church in Corinth in which he felt "caught up to paradise." He was "caught up to the third heaven. In the body or out of the body? That I do not know... and (here he) heard sacred secrets which no human lips can repeat" (Moffatt Translation). A sense of unreality in relation to one's body in space and a dreamy state of auditory hallucinations reminded Landsborough of experiences related by his TLE patients. Paul also complained about a "thorn in the flesh" -- perhaps a metaphor for an infirmity which periodically racked him such as convulsions.

Landsborough took particular interest in Paul's letter to Galatians. "(I)t was because of an illness... that I preached the gospel to you (the Galatians) on my former visit". Paul was impressed that these people did not "spurn" or "reject" him -- a translation of the literal verb "to spit out at". As Landsborough states, "Epilepsy was sometimes called morbus qui sputatur -- spitting was the superstitutious reaction of a witness to an attack of epilepsy" Thus reaching across the years as if it were yesterday a possibly spitting audience becomes a diagnosis of convulsions.

Hyperreligiosity is not uncommon in TLE patients. Religious conversion following ecstatic auras has been documented in at least six patients (Dewhurst & Beard, 1970). Perhaps much of our religious and mystical imagery comes about from limbic (self-referential) contents temporarily dominating cortical (more rationale) processes. We may never know what exactly transpired on that road to Damascus, but we do know that it changed the course of the world, eventually transforming a backwater Galilean cult into the most dominant force in history, eventually propelling individualistic Western cultures into the material and political successes that until recently were rarely challenged. Years ago I wrote about this paper in this newsletter and I pondered of Paul's experience having a neurological origin, and if so, given the right circumstances it may be replicated in part or whole. Of course Paul's guilt of complicity in the first marytrdom after the crucifixion may have facilitated the conversion, something which none of us will likely or willingly duplicate, but if we could induce the cortex into the same general profile of a mystical state, might anyone taste the mental state which helped transform the world.

-DK

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