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

Vol. 7 No. 3 - March 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 - The Science of Love
News & Reviews - Books & journal papers
Events & Locations - Conferences, Courses
Last Word - Research Articles, 2000-2003

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Announcements

-The mystery of mind control
-Movie Experiment Hints That Our Brains Work Alike
-How we dig up distant memories
-Researchers pinpoint where long-term memories live in the brain
-Time centers theory for jet lag
-Brain Cells Show Gender Difference
-Your Mistake, My Mistake-All the Same to the Brain

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

The Science of Love

"Parental love, which is so touching and at bottom so childish, is
nothing but parental narcissism born again..." Sigmund Freud, 1914
"Our assigned mission as psychologists is to analyze all facets of
human and animal behavior into their component variables. So far as
love or affection is concerned, psychologists have failed in this
mission." Harry Harlow, 1958

For 200 years Western goverments and charitable groups sponsored a
vicious and rampant form of infanticide. In 1800 the US alone
possessed seven institutions where the elimination of unwanted
children went on unabated. By the end of our Civil War, 600
institutions of death had sprouted up. In Europe the situation was
no better. In one "gruesome" institution in Florence, the Hospital
of the Innocents, 10,000 infants died before reaching their first
birthday. For every three children who passed through the hospital
doors, two left in a box. A survey of New York institutions of the
time reported that every child in their care had died before the age
of two, in all but one home. Philadelphia institutions did not have
that exception: every admittant eventually died. Baltimore
institutions fared slightly better: 90% died and 10% escaped death
through adoption or return to relatives. These gruesome institutions
of death were called orphanages.

So what was killing these innocent parentless children? Scientists
-- Pasteur, Fleming, and Jenner -- had recently made the world aware
of microscopic pathogens, but it was not microbes who threatened
most children. It was humans, our response to microbial threat.
Quarantine. Isolation. Ahh, there be the killing machine. To combat
virulent pathogens, orphanages virulently isolated the children from
one another, and from caregivers, lest infection spread through
human contact. And in so doing, neglect was institutionalized
throughout the modern world.

The experts of the time only made matters worse. At the turn of last
century, Dr. Luther Holt, the Dr Spock of his day, insisted that
parents should avoid closeness with their child. He railed against
the "vicious practice" of rocking a child in a cradle, or picking
them up when they cried or handling them too often. Affectionate
contact was especially hazardous. He bitterly opposed the common
practice of small children sharing the parent's bed or bedroom, a
custom from the beginning of time. Infants and small children should
sleep in separate rooms. Good hygiene was good child care.
Cleanliness was next to Godliness.

Unfortunately he was not alone in dishing out nonsensical yet
respected child-care advice. John B Watson, president of the
American Psychological Association (APA), and founder of
behaviorism, led a crusade against the evils of affection. "Mother
love is a dangerous instrument," he warned. Mothering warps the
child. He envisioned a utopian future in which baby farms would
raise children untouched by human hands, according to the most
recent scientific principles. Affection was not only unnecessary, he
argued, it was detrimental. We must purge the scourge of the
"overkissed child." Although Aldous Huxley satirize these ideas in
Brave New World, Watson was hailed for his efforts, a hero to many.

(Today, Watson is best known not for his child-rearing practices,
thankfully, but for his ethically-challenged Little Albert study.
Albert was an adventurous pudgy-faced 11-month-old boy who was fond
of rats but frightened by loud noises. Watson used this information
to condition the innocent child. He would place a friendly rat in
the boy's lap, then bang a metal bar with a hammer, scaring the
infant. He did this repeatedly. Soon Albert came to fear the rat, as
well as anything furry, a hat even. It was the prototype for
aversive conditioning and generalization as well.)

Rearing practices would likely have continued in a bleak Watsonian
landscape had politics not intervened. World War II shook everyone's
confidence in science, in human nature, and it brought forth a new
phenomena, the refugee child. In England and elsewhere, parents sent
their children away, to the countryside, to keep them safe from
bombing. There, well-fed, well-cared- for, and ultimately
heart-broken, many of these children became extremely withdrawn and
depressed. Being separated from their parents pulled them apart, at
some deeper level than most imagined. The nature of parent-child
relations needed to be re- evaluated.

Harry Bakwin, a New York pediatrician, started the process. He noted
how the absence of mothering -- for instance, when a child required
an extensive hospital stay -- often devastated his or her emotional
well-being. Startled by this effect, he began to document
"hospitalism" or lonely-child syndrome. He changed hygienic signs in
his local hospital from "Wash your hands twice before entering this
ward" to "Do not enter this nursery without picking up a baby." At
the time, parents were discouraged or even barred from visiting sick
children during a hospital stay. Bakwin won approval for mothers to
stay in the same room with their child, which he discovered led to a
significant drop in fatal infections. The value of human contact was
not lost on him, but he was years ahead of his time. His ward was an
oasis in a sea of American behaviorism and hygiene. One-hour a week
visit or less was the norm for most hospitals and these policies
remained in place well into the 1970s.

Rene Spitz was another pioneer in the effort to document the value
of human contact. In 1945 he compared two sets of children, one in a
typical orphanage, the other in a chaotic prison nursery. In the
former, cribs were separated from each other by hung sheets, a form
of solitary confinement to stave off infection. In the latter,
children shared a common room filled with noise and toys and germs.
Mothers (convicts) were allowed to spend as much time with their
children as possible, and most did. During Spitz' investigation, the
orphanage cared for 88 children, 23 of whom died from relentess
infection. The prison nursery, on the other hand, cared for 90
children, and none died during his study. The perils of loneliness
were quantifiable. Love, it seemed, was necessary for survival.
Spitz went on to film a handful of children in the foundling home,
much to the dismay of his audience. His film presented happy,
precocious children transformed into emotionless zombies after mere
weeks of isolation. He closed his film with a silent-movie cue card.
It read: "The cure: Give Mother Back to Baby." The initial reaction
to his work was not gratitude or remorse, but concentrated fury.
Surely 50 years of psychiatry could not be so wrong!

Before Harlow, the mother-child relationship was thought to be based
solely on sustenance. Whoever held the bottle held the child (i.e.,
emotionally). This idea originated with Freud, who was still alive
when Harlow began his rhesus monkey research (Sigmund Freud died in
1939). Alive or dead, Freud continued to cast a powerful shadow on
the field of psychology. According to Freud, the breast was the
infant's first erotic object, the focus of his love. When the
mammary relationship (if you will) was interrupted, a child's
reaction would be frought with sexuality, from fears of castration
to rage against dominating parents. It was fiction dressed up as
fact. But Freud was not alone in his misconceptions of childhood.
The empty-headed infant model had come to the fore. At the time, it
was believed by neuroscientists that babies can't see faces (1942),
or are unaware of their environment (1948), or are a collection of
reflexes only (1952) and cannot see color until age three (1964) and
are functionally decorticated, that is, brainless (1964). But Harlow
discovered that even an infant monkey was anything but empty-headed.
She had incredible needs -- for touch, attachment, love, safety,
security, exploration, excitement -- and incredible resources to
satisfy these needs. And if they were not satified, the results were
grim. "Learning to love, like learning to walk or talk, can't be put
off too long without crippling effects," he wrote.

John Bowlby was the first to fully comprehend the crippling effects
of neglect and abandonment. He refined his predecessors'
observations and reflections into what we now call attachment
theory. Raised by a nanny until eight, John was sent to boarding
school like all upper class children of his day, and he hated the
experience. From it the seeds of attachment theory would grow, but
to convince the world of his ideas, he needed hard, unrefutable
data; and that is where the young enterprising University of
Wisconsin professor came in.

Harry Harlow (born Harry Israel) started out academic life as a rat
researcher, as most psychologists of his day. His dissertation was
on the feeding habits of baby rats and this effort would have a
profound impact on his professional life: Harlow would never again
want to work with vermin. At the time the American psychological
community was knee-deep in behaviorism and there weren't enough rats
on planet Earth to run through all the studies envisioned by these
men (and a handful of women). Harlow opted for a different species
to study, a smarter animal to test. Primates, he decided, and the
cheapest primate at that, the abundant rhesus macaque.

Harlow initially focused on intelligence, and because monkeys were
more expensive than rats, he didn't sacrifice the animal after an
experiment was complete, as rat researchers habitually did. Instead,
he fed them and kept them around for future projects. As such,
economic constraints led him to one of his first discoveries: prior
learning facilitated future learning. His monkeys got quicker and
quicker at solving his puzzles. And unlike rats, they often solved
puzzles for no rewards at all, out of curiosity. This was a far more
interesting animal to study than rats.

And what really interested Harlow was not intelligence, but love.
Love in all its facets: acquisition, loss, and recovery. And he
started at the beginning, when love is strongest, between a mother
and her offspring.

Love ... perhaps no one does it better, or needs it more, than a
child - Deborah Blum, 2002

The first surrogate mother study included a mere eight rhesus
monkeys. In each cage were housed two mothers, one made of chicken
wire, one of cloth. In four of these cages, the cloth mother held
the feeding bottle; in the other four, the wire mother sported the
milk. Harlow measured the time each infant spent with either
surrogate. Monkeys fed on the cloth mother, he observed, clinged and
climbed on her for 18 hours a day and spent little or no time with
the wire mother. But the crucial test was the remaining four
monkeys. Those fed by the wire mother, it turned out, spent 17 hours
with the cloth mother and only one on her. In other words, being fed
formed no relationship. Harlow had proven Freud wrong.

Later research revealed the paradoxical nature of love. How there
was a time to cling to mother, and a time to leave her to explore,
and to hurry back to her safety when adventures turned rocky. She
was the starting point for all relationships, peer as well as
sexual. No single relationship, not even mother-child, was enough
for healthy social development.

Harlow explored the darker side of love as well. He created monster
mothers, mechanical devices that threw off their infants like angry
bucking broncos. He devised such experiments to learn the effect on
the infant. And what did these poor souls do? Did they run from
"mother," hide from her, avoid her sudden jerks? No, they simply
clung tighter, laying anchor in the only harbor they knew. Years
later, when Harlow was criticized for his apparent lack of ethical
concern for his subjects, he replied, "For every mistreated monkey
there exists a million mistreated children." The brutal studies
needed to produce unambiguous data in order to educate the world, to
reduce the brutality of contemporary human practices.

Looking back it's easy to criticize much of his research. He
devastated hundreds of animals' lives. But it is these same studies
which moved our culture, forced us to that plateau of
self-recognition where we now recognized the wrong inherent in
social deprivation. But without his studies, without his rigorous
examination of the deleterious effects of social isolation and
emotional neglect, we might only now be reaching that plateau.

Throughout his life Harlow did not shy away from controversy and was
not afraid to be on the unpopular side of an argument or school of
thought. He survived attacks from behaviorists, Freudians, and near
the end of his career, feminists and ethicists. His life was filled
with powerful allies and powerful rivals. His biography cuts through
nearly all the major personalities of 20th century psychology. The
details cannot be included in this review, but the book handles them
all very well: from Thorndike to Ainsworth, Bruno Bettelheim to
Harlow's first graduate student, Abraham Maslow. Freud and Skinner
are there as well.

If there is any conclusion to his work, it might be the following:
Love changes the young brain forever. And love is complicated.

Harry Harlow died in 1981.

-DK

Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection
by Deborah Blum
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738202789/top100

[Numerous photos to the above article at
http://start.eegspectrum.com/Newsletter/mar2003.htm ]
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News & Reviews
NEW BOOKS



Cognitive Neuroscience of Development
by Michelle De Hann, Mark H. Johnson, Michelle de Haan, Arthur H.
Evans, Mark Johnson
Overview of methods used to study emerging interface between
neurobiological and psychological perspectives in typical and
atypical cognitive development.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/184169214X/top100

Neural Plasticity: Effects of Environment on the Development of the
Cerebral Cortex
by Peter R. Huttenlocher
Integrates recent research on plasticity in sensory systems, motor
cortex, higher cortical functions, and language development. -
-www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0674007433/top100

Healing ADD: The Breakthrough Program That Allows You to See and
Heal the 6 Types of ADD
by Daniel G. Amen
Amen notes six distinct types of Attention Deficit Disorder, each
requiring a different treatment program. --www.amazon.com/
exec/obidos/ASIN/0425183270/top100

Dual Diagnosis Recovery Sourcebook: Addiction with an Emotional
Disorder
by Dennis C. Ortman
Psychological, social, and spiritual approaches to recovering from
dual diagnoses; case studies included.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0737303190/top100

Sleep Disturbance in Children and Adolescents with Disorders of
Development
by Gregory Stores, Lucinda Wiggs,
Comprehensive review of the nature and causes of sleep disorders,
describing special assessment and management considerations for
various developmental disorders.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1898683247/top100

Functional Neuroimaging in Child Psychiatry
by Monique Ernst, Judith M. Rumsey
Reviews recent developments of functional neuroimaging techniques
and implications for child psychiatry.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521650445/top100

Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry: Behavioral
Sciences/Clinical Psychiatry
by Benjamin J. Sadock, Virginia A. Sadock
Integrates biological, psychological, and sociological perspectives.
Case histories. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0781731836/top100

Anxiety and Its Disorders, 2nd Ed: The Nature and Treatment of
Anxiety and Panic
by David H. Barlow
Model of panic and anxiety based on recent developments in emotion
theory, cognitive science, and neuroscience. --
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572304308/top100

Seizures and Epilepsy in Childhood: A Guide
by John M. Freeman, EPG Vining, Diana J. Pillas
Tries to convince parents to shift their focus from seizure to the
whole child. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0801870518/top100

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JOURNAL PAPERS

Role of EEGs in the treatment and prognosis of epilepsy. : The
significance of what is recorded in an EEG can be easily
misunderstood or misinterpreted.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14974262

Anterior prefrontal cortex: insights into function from anatomy and
neuroimaging. : Examine function of anterior prefrontal cortex
(Brodmann area 10); its specific role in integrating outcomes of two
or more separate cognitive operations in pursuit of a goal.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14976518

Dual diagnosis: alcoholism and co-morbid psychiatric disorders. :
Reviews epidemiological, diagnostic, and treatment literature on
co-morbidity of alcoholism, notably drug abuse, mood disorders,
anxiety disorders, and antisocial personality disorder.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14972778

Neuroimaging in autistic spectrum disorder : Routine neuroimaging is
not recommended for autism due to population heterogeneity. But when
symptoms are similar andbrain organization differs, shouldn't we
scan each patient's brain to divulge his/her actual condition.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14748203

Neuroimaging correlates of the Halstead Finger Tapping Test in TBI :
Different patterns of brain activation may be seen even when the
level of behavioral performance of TBI patients is generally normal.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14742155

EEG activities during wakefulness and sleep in the frontal cortex of
healthy older people : Wakeful thinking may be reflected by cortical
reorganization during the first NREM period.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14746376

Childhood adversities as risk factors for affect dysregulation :
Parenting styles were moderately correlated with alexithymia and
depressionnin adulthood.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14767153

Neuropsychological deficits in patients with chronic fatigue
syndrome. : CFS patients are often impaired in attention, speed of
information processing, and motor speed, but not in memory nor
executive functioning.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14759274

Neuropsychological performance in obsessive-compulsive disorder : A
review of OCD literature points to memory dysfunction, probably due
to encoding impairment, common to this condition.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14757309

Neural correlates of cue-induced craving in cocaine-dependent women.
: Sex differences in the functional anatomy of cue-induced cocaine
craving are reported, possibly reflecting different conditioning,
affective, or volitional regulation.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14754771

Event-related fMRI of reward- related brain circuitry in
children: Regions and time-courses of reward-related activity were
similar to those observed in adults, focusing on orbital-frontal
cortex.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14960288

Resting EEG in offspring of male alcoholics: beta frequencies. :
Increased EEG beta power may be a likely marker of risk for
developing alcoholism.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=14962576

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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

Washington DC Jun 24-27
Denver CO Jul 15-18
Los Angeles CA Aug 12-15
Portland OR Sep 18-21
Boston MA Oct 14-17
Raleigh NC Nov 11-14
Los Angeles CA Dec 9-12

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
iSNR Ft Lauderdale Aug 26-29
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Last Word

Research Articles, 2000-2003

1000 Articles Indexed News Alerts - Research Articles, 2000-2003
Chronologically ordered (most recent first)

ADHD/ADD
Autism Spectrum Disorders
Learning Disabilities
Ritalin
Tourette's Syndrome

Epilepsy
Somatic Disorders (CFS, pain, fibromyalgia)
Traumatic Brain Injury
Sleep Disorders

Anxiety & Stress Disorders
Bipolar and Mood Disorders

EEG
Neuroimaging

Addiction & Alcoholism

http://start.eegspectrum.com/research/

-DK
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