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

Vol. 7 No. 1 - January 2004

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 the author's only. Copyright (C) 2004
by EEG Spectrum Intl, Inc. or David Kaiser. All rights reserved.
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Announcements - News
In the Spotlight - Beware a Terrace Effect
News & Reviews - Books & journal papers
Events & Locations - Conferences, Courses
Last Word - 2003 Index

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Announcements

Sorry for the delay.. weird email error.. next month's WNIN due shortly.

What's New in Neurofeedback enters its 7th year! making it the longest-running,
continuously published webzine dedicated to mental health in history.

Studying Hyperlexia May Unlock How Brains Read
Hunger Sharpens Your Taste Buds
Brain Scans Substantiate Feel-the-Pain Sentiments
Teen brains show low motivation
How the Brain Makes Sense of the Senses
'Brain fingerprinting' touted as truth meter

All links at:
http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=science&cat=brain_research

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In the Spotlight

Beware a Terrace Effect

"Honored Members of the Academy! You do me honor by inviting me to
give your Academy an account of the life I formerly led as an ape."

So begins "A Report for the Academy," a little-known story by Franz
Kafka (1919) in which an ape devises an ingenious means of escaping
zoo life; he imitates his captors (humans) to the point that they
note the resemblance and free him. Sixty years later, a psychologist
would make allusion to this fictional piece when he presented his
own masterwork to the world, a scientific report that would
undermine his field's credibility and limit its publications for
years to come.

Herbert S. Terrace, professor of psychology at Columbia University,
was an expert of primate behavior in 1979 when he presented his
critique of ape sign language work in the prestigious journal
"Science." Terrace was a bit of a convert to this opinion: he had
started his research project in order to replicate the famed ape
language study of the day (Washoe) -- in fact he secretly hoped to
learn enough to be able to have nonhuman translators escort him into
the bush -- but eventually he confirmed the opinion of the
opposition, notably the discontinuists, those who argued that human
language was unique. He now thought that he and everyone else
involved in this endeavor had been duped by our clever simian
cousins. Apes have no capacity for language, no competence for
lawful relationships between symbols, he concluded. And like many
converts, the shortcomings of this new opinion were overlooked, and
he failed to realize the significance of what had actually
transpired.

The earliest experiment in the behavioral sciences is known as the
Forbidden Experiment. It is an investigation into extreme social
deprivation and innate behavior. It goes as follows: If we deprive a
child of all human contact, what will we have at the end of day? A
human child, or something less? Whatever we have will be innate and
unlearned, the primordial stuff from which civilized man emerged.
Legend has it that the experiment was first performed in an attempt
to identify our Mother Tongue, the first and original language of
humankind. According to Herodotus, an Egyptian king named
Psammetichus (664-610 BC) hoped to prove that Egyptians were the
oldest race of men through linguistic means. His approach was novel
in that it was empirical and methodical, even using a replicated
sample size (two children instead of one). Two newborns were removed
from their family and given to a shepherd to be brought up in

isolation. The shepherd was instructed never to say a word in their
presence. This way, logic dictated, when the poor children finally
did utter a word, it had to be innate, unlearned, spontaneously
combusted from the latent innate language in our genes. Legend has
it that the first words of both children was "becos," a Phrygian
word for "bread." Phrygia, a neighboring people living in modern
Turkey, ruled by King Midas and Gordias (of gordian knot famed),
could now claim priority over Egypt. That the first social science
experiment disconfirmed the investigator's hypothesis should be
noteworthy, and be a lesson for all field studies that followed.

The forbidden experiment was replicated two thousand years later. In
1211 Frederick II reared dozens of children in linguistic isolation
in order to uncover what he called the language of God. But the
experiment failed when all the children died (a topic central to
next month's review of Harry Harlow's work). In fact the forbidden
experiment has been replicated numerous times in albeit accidentally
and in less controlled settings many times since, in what is called
feral children. Feral children are typically young children, often
infants, abandoned by their parents to the elements. Miraculously
some of these children survive and are found by an adult who returns
them to civilization. Now we should realize at the get-go that
extreme social deprivation may be only one of many mechanisms at
play in determining these children's behaviors. For instance, some
are believed to have been mentally retarded or autistic at birth,
which contributed to their abandonment. Historically, there have
been about 80 feral children, most found in the company of wolves
(around 50 of the total), though bears, dogs, chimps, baboons,
monkeys, sheep, goats, leopards, kangaroos, gazelles, ostriches,
jackals, panthers, pigs, and cows each have had their turn or two.
The earliest recorded instance was during Roman Times, the most
recent, last month (http://www.thestar.co.za/
index.php?fSectionId=129&fArticleId=356129). A modern variant on the
experiment involves confined children, those who under the cruel eye
of a parent or guardian are kept apart from all others.

So what does this have to do with neurotherapy?

Well, we're getting there.... Since time immemorial, we have sought
to separate ourselves from the other creatures that share our world.
Tool making and language have been our two-pronged attack to keep
all evolutionary precursors at bay, and since the 1960s, tool-making
has taken deadly hits as apes exhibit reasonably sophisticated tool
fashioning (perhaps power tool- making should be the division...).
So language, with its inherent complexity, remains the final,
formidable barrier.

The study of linguistic behavior in apes is nearly hundred years
old. Furness (1916) taught a female orang-utan to produce vocally,
papa, and cup and the sound "th" over 11 months of instruction, but
she died abruptly before further study could be completed. Other
attempts into vocal production ran into architectural constraints:
the human throat evolved to produce an array of articulated sounds,
the simian throat did not (Kellogg & Kellogg, 1933; Hayes & Hayes,
1951). However all primates are facile with their hands (perhaps the
defining feature of our Order), so language production moved from
mouth to hand. In 1966 the Gardners trained a wild-born female
chimpanzee named Washoe in American Sign Language (ASL). Washoe
acquired about 100 ASL signs in three years of training and even
started to combine them as well. The combination question was
critical, because here is where most linguists familiar with this
debate draw the line. Humans possess syntax, animals do not. As we
learn more and more about all fellow mammals, we've come to realize
just how many possess forms of semantic symbol systems, however
slight, but combining symbols in lawful orderly relationships, ahh,

there's the rub -- that is where people like Noam Chomsky and other
large-brain primates would beg to differ. So although the great apes
demonstrate the intellectual achievements of 2- to 3-year-old
children (i.e., symbolic subperiod of the preoperations period, for
those keeping score), handling temporal complexity with symbols is
beyond them, or is it?

Part of this conclusion came rightly from Terrace's interpretation
of his own research and others, and part came wrongly from Terrace's
interpretation of his own research and others.

As I warn my students, psychological research involves concrete
implementation of abstract ideas -- in other words, you have an
idea, now how do you enact it without conflating it with half a
dozen other forces when pencil hits paper or finger hits keyboard.
Confounds can drive one's datastream better than we often imagine.
We need to recognize this. We need to be sure that what we intended
to happen is what actually happened. Were the forces we meant to
alter behavior the dominant forces present? Too often we are seduced
by our own ingenuity and conceptual elegance and fail to heed the
warnings of sloppy realities. This is the heart of the Terrace
Effect.

Terrace raised a common chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky (in honor or
parody of Noam Chomsky -- already the self- seduction is underway)
and trained him in a controlled environment to "use" sign language.
After reviewing tapes of the training sessions, Terrace concluded
that Nim really didn't understand what he was saying with the signs.
Rather he was mimicking the trainers' signs, he relied heavily on
imitation and prompting. These conclusions raised serious questions
about the results in all published chimp sign language experiments.
Funding soon dried up. Science and Nature refused to publish
anything more on the topic for 20 years.

The Gardners, who trained Washoe, disagreed. Nim, they claimed, was
the victim of his environment, restricted to a windowless cell and
trained by more than 70 teachers, many of whom lacked sign language
competence themselves. Try to learn Farsi from 70 undergraduates and
see how much linguistic competence you possess at the final exam.
Terrace concluded that Nim performed signs solely to get rewards,
without any understanding of what he was saying. But did he ever
care to understand what Nim had to say? His training technique was
entirely unilateral in intention, with no regard for the mental
contents of Nim's mind outside of the strict confines of
conditioning paradigm. Nim never acquired a communal system of
communication because no communal symbol system was offered him. It
would be like giving a child a set of drums and then criticizing him
for failing to play the piano, an instrument he never laid eyes on.
Recent research shows that the pygmy chimp not only can acquire
linguistic and syntactial competence to a great degree, they can
acquire and understand English like a human child, from entire
sentences to completely novel requests (Savage-Rumbaugh).

Communication requires a rapport. Appreciation for the mind you are
trying to communicate with. Nim never received knew this. He had 70
enthusiastic students drilling him rotely for hours on end, not
unlike the way mathematics has been taught unsuccessfully to
millions for generations. Treating Nim like a fellow mental
creature, with opinions and insights of his own, allowing his
attention to dominant on occasion, might have revealed his true
limits. Treating him like an experimental subject created limits.

So what is the Terrace Effect?

Drawing a conclusion about what you intended to do without realizing
what you actually did. What did Terrace do? Did he test syntactical
competence in great apes? No. Not really. He did a version of the
forbidden experiment, the closest approximation allowable by today's
ethical standards. He raised a hominoid in an impoverished
linguistic environment and then tested him for innate lingustic

abilities. What did he find out? If you ignore another's mind, they
will ignore yours, regardless of how smart you assume you are and
how many nifty communication tricks you may possess. My
kindergartener could have told you this. (This is an important
lesson for those treating autism; the autistic individual believes
his viewpoint is just as valid as yours; you have to outcompete and
persuade him towards a more consensual mode of being.)

And what is the relevance to neurotherapy? This is a field of
mistakes, as all social and health sciences are. Mistakes in
implementing our intentions mistakes in analysis, mistakes in
conclusions. We hope to exercise specific actions of the brain, so
we set a machine's parameters such and such, but in the end have we
accomplished what we set out to do. Before we presume we have, and
analyze the conclusions based on what we presume is solid evidence,
we need to evaluate what exactly has transpired with our clients.
How well did we train the brain? Did we assume limitations of brain
function that are not there? Did we presume a model of health or
dysfunction that is just a model, far from reality? In short, we
always need to evaluate our assumptions, our implementations, and
qualify our conclusions accordingly.

There was a recent paper that seems to have done the opposite. After
a minimal amount of work, a handful of subjects, they declared
supreme understanding of the hundreds of studies that went before
them. Fortunately they do not have the reputation Terrace had when
he stepped into the fray. Fundamental misunderstandings about EEG
and/or operant conditioning can readily lead to a big name stepping
into the field, running a study, finding nothing, and leaving a
debris-field in his or her wake. Belief that gross SMR magnitude
will increase after training (in individuals who don't show SMR
deficits) is a common misconception, and one recently published in a
noteworthy paper. Belief that operant conditioning works well with
continuous reward -- well, you try it... get your kid to sit still
by giving him candy all the time, regardless of his actions. Reward,
reward, reward, reward, reward, reward. True, we need to shape to a
goal state when the goal behavior is not being elicited in full, but
once the goal is approximated, reward must necessarily become
discrete, else non-goal behavior is also being rewarded. Reward must
be focal (associatively) to lead to discrimination. If associatively
diffuse, generalization occurs. Basic Skinner 101 principles.

Now maybe a big name will step into the field and get it right (or
like me, get it wrong early and figure out why) and become a
convert, and the field will experience renewed popularity and
credibility, but we should always be careful to presume competence,
especially by a seductive presence. The Terrace Effect crippled the
field of ape language study for 20 years; do we want a similar fate?

Returning to that recent paper where they found nothing and claimed
this is the state of the world (i.e., neurotherapy). Two individuals
from a school in New Zealand trained seven children "using a
standard EEG biofeedback treatment protocol designed to alter
SMR/theta ratios and reduce behavioral symptomatology diagnostic of
ADHD". Now, I cannot get this journal at my school nor the U of
Rochester (one of the largest biomedical holdings in the world)
which probably reflects on the journal, so I can only quote from the
abstract: "During alternate periods they were also trained using a
placebo protocol that was identical to the treatment protocol, save
that the association between EEG patterns and feedback to the
participants was random. " ... during alternate periods? What kind
of method is this? Using this approach, I can prove any slow-acting
agent will not differ from placebo. I can prove that the major
tricyclics are no more ineffective than M & M's. Brain function is
not easily and rapidly disheveled neurochemically, then resheveled,

on a time clock. It often requires a sustained assault.

Continuing: "When overall behavioral trends unrelated to training
were not controlled for and non-completers were excluded from the
analysis, it could be mistakenly concluded that EEG biofeedback is
significantly more effective than placebo and that the effect sizes
involved are moderate to large." These results indicate that many
previous reports of the efficacy of EEG biofeedback for ADHD" --
last month I included 280 peer reviewed papers, including cat,
monkey, and human subjects --" particularly those presenting series
of single cases, might well have been based on spurious findings."

Or could it be that the authors do not understand how EEG operant
conditioning influences brain function? Or might they not understand
the basics of operant conditioning? Or a hundred other things that
the authors of those 280 primarily successful studies did and do?

-DK
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News & Reviews

NEW BOOKS

Souls: Beneath & beyond Autism
by Thomas Balsamo, Sharon Rosenbloom
Investigation of this devastating condition, from the child affected
to the parents that cope with it.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072881704/top100

Alternative Medicine and Multiple Sclerosis
by Allen C. Bowling
Information on many complementary and alternative medicines that may
help manage some MS symptoms and promote general health.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1888799528/top100

Pediatric Neuroimaging
by A. James Barkovich
Imaging of neurological disorders in infants and children
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/078171740X/top100

Antiepileptic Drugs
by Rene H. Levy, Richard H. Mattson, Brian S. Meldrum, Khurram H.
Bashir, Emilio Perucca
More information that most would ever need to know, but a handy
reference for those treating epilepsy.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0781723213/top100

Integrated Treatment for Dual Disorders: A Guide to Effective
Practice
by Kim Mueser, Robert Drake, Douglas Noordsy, L Fox
Guide to assist addicted clients with major mental illness.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572308508/top100

Neurological Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience
by Mark D'Esposito
Reviews classic neurobehavioral syndromes from neurological and
cognitive scientific perspectives.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262042096/top100

Integrated Treatment for Dual Disorders: A Guide to Effective
Practice
by Kim Mueser, Robert Drake, Douglas Noordsy, L Fox
Guide to assist addicted clients with major mental illness.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572308508/top100

Brain Injury and Mental Retardation: Psychopharmacology and
Neuropsychiatry
by C. Thomas Gualtieri
Organizes scientific literature for treating TBI and MR, esp.
pharmocologically.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0781734738/top100
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JOURNAL PAPERS

Brain imaging studies in human addicts. : Heroin-related stimuli
provokes activation of anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal regions.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14636961

Brain oscillations as functional correlates of cognitive systems:
alcoholism. : Theta and delta reduction are prominent at the frontal
region of alcoholics compared to control, suggesting a deficient
inhibitory control and information-processing mechanism.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14693365

Complexity changes of the EEG induced by alcohol cue exposure : When
subjects are exposed to alcohol cues, changes in EEG complexity are
observed in frontal, right posterior temporal, and occipital areas
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14691383

Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Autistic Spectrum
Disorder. : More than 30% of children were using some CAM, and that

9% were using potentially harmful CAM, though less frequently used
for those children with additional diagnoses.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14671475

Peculiarity of the right-hemisphere function in depression : The
right hemisphere organizes information polysemantically. In
depression RH physiological overactivation may reflect unsuccessful
efforts to overcome functional insufficiency.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14687851

EEG spectral power and mean frequencies in early heroin abstinence.
: Frequency shifts in alpha2 (esp. frontal and central) correlated
with daily heroin consumption. Slowing of alpha1 mean frequency
appeared mainly in heroin addicts who abused high doses of the drug.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14687860

Brain circuits determine destiny in depression : Augments
antidepressants by targeting neurotransmitters involved in commonly
experienced residual symptoms.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14658930

Out-of-body experience of neurological origin. : Paroxysm at the
temporo-parietal juncture in a state of impaired consciousness
causes a failure to integrate proprioceptive, tactile and visual
information of one's body, and thus OBEs.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14662516

Cortical abnormalities in children and adolescents with ADHD :
Abnormal morphology was noted in frontal cortex in ADHD, with
reduced inferior portions of dorsal prefrontal cortex and anterior
temporal cortex bilaterally.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14643117

Magnetic resonance volumetric study of the temporal lobe structures
in depression. : In depressed patients the temporal horns were
larger compared to the control group. Nondepressed show greater
hemispheric differences.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14655115

Quantitative spectral analysis of EEG in psychiatry revisited : QEEG
was abnormal in 83% of 340 patients, and 12% of 67 normal subjects.
Decrease in delta and theta bands were most indicative of brain
dysfunction.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14652089

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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

Los Angeles, CA Mar 25-28
Boston, MA Apr 15-18
Chicago IL May 13-16
Washington DC Jun 24-27
Vancouver, BC Jul 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 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.

CONFERENCE LOCATION DATES
AAPB Colorado Springs Apr 1-4
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Last Word

2003 Index

Spotlight articles


Brainwaves and Behavior (Part 1 of 2)
Brainwaves and Behavior (Part 2 of 2)
Fight the Power, revisited
Four Decades of Neurofeedback
Math Confused as Science
Mind Too Male: Autism and its Cure, A
Mine the Mind, Filtered or Unfiltered
Neurotherapy since 2000
Quick Lessons from Neuroanatomy
The Year in Neurofeedback
Theory of Mind Tests
Winter Brain 2003

Last Word

EEG & FMRI databases online
Excitation vs Inhibition
Exterminating Spam
Hemisphere Integration Tasks
iSNR Conference 2003
Keep Informed
Knowledge is Power -- or so we quote
Online Clinician Listings
SABA II
Science Daily
Treating Darwin

Articles in WNIN, 1998-2003 -
http://start.eegspectrum.com/Newsletter/review.htm

-DK
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