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

Vol. 7 No. 8 - August 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 - International Society for Neuronal Regulation
News & Reviews - Books & journal papers
Events & Locations - Conferences, Courses
Last Word - When Rats Die for Reward

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Announcements - News

Scanners 'improve brain surgery'
Stroke victim robbed of her dreams
'Dream centre' of the brain found
Brain scans show hypnosis at work
New theory on cause of dyslexia
Single gene removes sex differences in mice brains
Brain may produce its own antipsychotic drug
Brain Study Shows Why Revenge is Sweet
Mental ping-pong could aid paraplegics

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


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In the Spotlight

International Society for Neuronal Regulation

A well-known ADHD researcher was interviewed for an appearance he is
making later this month in Rochester, New York, and in the newspaper
interview he mentioned that biofeedback (presumably EEG biofeedback)
doesn't work. First, how would he know -- has he ever done a single
session? Ever hook up a child and see the results? A scientist
really has only one thing and that his or her reputation for truth
and honesty, and that is really ALL a scientist has, and one should
protect it, because people will never trust you again if you don't.
The stakes are simply too high: life and death, quality of life.
What will this researcher do when the newest fMRI findings with
neurofeedback show up in a journal he reads. Will he say I was only
trying to make the field work to a higher standard. Too late. You
didn't qualify your statement that it doesn't work and like Herb
Terrace in ape language research (as I described in a previous
issue), in a decade when you're proven so wrong as to be irrelevant
you won't even earn a footnote. When the current gold standard in
treatment -- fMRI changes as a result of neurofeedback -- are
splashed about, who will listen to what he has to say. That's what
people do once they realized they're been grossly misled.


Last month in Fort Lauderdale, Mario Beauregard presented
preliminary gold-standard findings: fMRI changes as a result of 40
neurofeedback sessions in ADHD children. He found no comparable
changes in controls. So far the subject pool is small (20) but it's
the trickle before the dam bursts open.

Roger deBeus and J.D. Ball presented the latest findings on their
double-blind placebo-controlled study for ADHD. Training reduced
hyperactivity and improved attention, reduced aggressive behaviors,
and improved performance on a computerized attention task.

Jeffrey Carmen and Robert Coben showed the promise of infrared
imaging (thermographic) for assessing brain function, especially,
frontal lobe functioning, in a variety of diagnostic groups. The
data is robust but complex.

John Gruzelier provided a history of the alpha/theta protocol, which
was very illuminating -- one of the only talks I wrote down the
various citations being discussed. Historical reviews are so
necessary for science: they lets us understand how we got here and
whether we are building on stone or sand.

David Kaiser (myself) presented more on comodulation. Coherence
measures the stationarity of the phase difference between two
signals at each frequency and comodulation measures stationarity of
amplitude difference between two signals at a frequency, so it
covers the synchrony problem-space equally but orthogonally to
coherence. Unlike coherence which identifies shared frequencies, due
to a single generator or intense coupling of multiple generators,
comodulation reveals shared timing, that is, functional association
between cortical sites. Site comodulation and rogue site analysis,
an index of moment-to-moment decoupling, were discussed but it was
global comodulation that captured most people's interest. Global
comodulation is the average of all site-pair comodulations, a quick
and dirty index of brain maturity, as it correlated with age in ADHD
children (r=.93), and separated ADHD from age-matched controls, as
well as children from adults. It quantify how much dominant
frequency activity penetrates regional activity, which I believe
tells us how well the frontal lobe is orchestrating cognition. A
brain-unity quotient (BQ), perhaps.

John Kounios presented another study of orchestration: how our brain
attempts to solve problems, those that require insight and those
that do not. Using fMRI he found that non-insightful, plodding to
solution problems activated the left temporal lobe but those
problems requiring insight were only solved when the right anterior
superior temporal gyrus was activated.

Richard Silberstein used coherence to identify decoupling and
coupling during information processing. He argued that cognitive
ability (i.e., IQ) was correlated with the capacity to dynamically
couple and de-couple specific neural systems.

Roberto Pascual-Marqui describes the basics of LORETA, which was
extremely helpful to most, given the rise of LORETA (low resolution
EEG tomography) neurofeedback. This conference marks the rise of
LORETA Neurofeedback. Also, there were numerous talks dedicated to
ADHD, autism, tourettes, autism, youth offenders, eating disorders,
migraine, peak performance, and others. As I tell my students,
conferences are where it's at -- where the new ideas emerge and gain
acceptance. The ideas in textbooks are fossils, many strata deep.
Sure, these ancient ideas (say, 10 years old) are the foundation of
our thinking, the raw source from which new ideas evolve, but they
are dinosaurs and only the few that can take wing survive the nimble
ideas of the present.

The 12th Annual conference for ISNR was held in Fort Lauderdale in
late August.

-DK


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News & Reviews

NEW BOOKS

Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
by Steven Johnson
Layperson view of 21st century brain sciences which includes
neurofeedback. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743241657/top100

Handbook of Emotions, 2nd Edition
Michael Lewis
From the philosophy of emotions to emotions in art and the
humanities to emotions in the mammalian brain and facial
expressions. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572305290/top100

Cognitive Electrophysiology of Mind and Brain
by Alberto Zani, Alice Proverbio
Reviews developments in recording of bioelectric and magnetic
responses of the brain.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0127754210/top100

Neurotransmitters, Drugs and Brain Function
by Roy Webster
Textbook for students of pharmacology, psychology, neuroscience, and
related disciplines.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471978191/top100

Handbook of Disruptive Behavior Disorders
by Herbert C. Quay, Anne E. Hogan
Three quarters of all psychopathological disorders of childhood and
adolescence are disruptive behaviors (ADHD, ODD, CD). Reviews
various issues of this disorders including assessment.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0306459744/top100

Sleep Disorders Medicine: Basic Science, Technical Considerations,
and Clinical Aspects
by Sudhansu Chokroverty, Robert B. Daroff
Comprehensive tome on basic aspects of sleep, sleep technology, and
clinical science of sleep.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/075069954X/top100

Mind, Stress, and Emotions: The New Science of Mood
by Gene Wallenstein
Genetic, biological, psychological, and environmental bases of
emotions, with novel treatment strategies for mood and anxiety
disorders. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0972060731/top100

The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach
by Christof Koch
The last great unsolved mystery of science. Biological basis of the
subjective mind in animals and people is described.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0974707708/top100

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JOURNAL PAPERS
Neuropsychological progress severe traumatic brain injury in
childhood : Eight severe TBI teen patients were assessed
neuropsychologically 1, 7 and 14 years after injury. Performance of
verbal IQ declined over assessments. Verbal learning was most
impaired.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uid
s=15223744

EEG alpha and level of response to alcohol in young adults with
family alcoholism. : Alcohol was found to produce significant
effects on EEG power in the slow alpha frequencies. Hispanic
participants had decreases in fast alpha activity whereas
non-Hispanics had increases.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uid
s=15222586

Gender differences in cortical complexity. : Greater gyrification
was found in women than men in frontal and parietal regions, perhaps
offseting gender differences in brain volume and the basis for
behavioral gender differences.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uid
s=15235605

Neuropsychological correlates of cannabis, stimulant, and opioid
abuse. : Reviews executive functioning impairment due to abuse and
the mediating role of neuropsychological status on treatment
outcomes.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uid
s=15260137

Effects of normal aging on ERD during a memory task : Normal aging
affects oscillatory theta, alpha and beta responses during retrieval
from working memory.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uid
s=15265582
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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

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.


Conferences for Neurofeedback Clinicians & Researchers
CONFERENCE LOCATION DATES

AAPB - http://www.aapb.org Austin TX Apr 1-4
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Last Word

When Rats Die for Reward

Newsweek featured a short article on neurofeedback this week.
Unfortunately, what caught the eye of the science writer was less
science than entertainment. They featured once again a system which
plays a videogame with brainwaves. Neurofeedback needs to train the
brain, not entertain. Too many people feel the need to motivate the
client to return with ephemoral rewards -- buzz and blips -- instead
of the solid rewards of mental health.

A few years ago a NASA-derived company, or so they called
themselves, had a similar set up, and they went belly up pretty
quickly. Why? For whatever reasons they told their shareholders, but
I suspect any system that simply alters gameplay of videogames
cannot train the brain, at least not efficiently. Why? Because it
isn't operant conditioning (OC), at least it mightily avoids the
primary goal of OC which is discrimination.

Operant conditioning increases the tendency of one and only one
response in favor of all others to a stimulus. This is done by
rewarding one behavior above all others, to the detriment of those
near-neighbors. When a pigeon is trained to peck a light, pecking
the wall nearby, or flapping a wing, or nuzzling the food magazine
-- none of these behaviors are rewarded with a pellet drop. If they
were, the bird brain would continue his or her non-goal behavior. In
neurofeedback, we want, say, increases in SMR, and need to reward
only that. But with an elaborate videogame going on -- essentially
whatever brainwaves that occur in response to any visual stimulation
is being conditioned. It's jumping on the videogame addiction
bandwagon to get clients into the office. We routinize poor
children's brains into these inflexible states by allow such
immersion into these video games. How can math and reading compete,
with their slower, less frequent reward schedules. Skinner realized
all of this decades ago, using rats and pigeons, but a quick primer
on Operant Conditioning might help for those who missed it.

Operant conditioning works by associating reward with desired
behaviors. Optimally we should place electrodes into the pleasure
center of the hypothalamus and turn on the juice whenever a targeted
behavior is performed and turn it off when it isn't. This on/off
dichotomy is reflected in discrete exercises (not so much in
continuous reward games like the ones often featured by magazines).
Animation, or any visual excitement prior to or after the criterion
behavior is performed, undermines conditioning as it rewards
non-criterion behavior, whatever the brain is doing at that moment.
Continuous reward information is only useful during shaping, when a
person has difficulty eliciting or maintaining a desired behavior,
and then only to successive approximations to the goal behavior. But
once this obstacle is overcome, once a person can reliably perform
the behavior requested of him or her, continuous reward will weaken
the association between stimulus and response. As I said already,
the goal of operant conditioning is discrimination. Discrimination
emerges out of generalization by the means of FOCAL association,
strong linkages between response and reward.

BF Skinner figured this all out 50 years ago: punishment and
reinforcement, both positive and negative, reinforcement schedules,
contingencies, informative signals, noninformative ones, primary
reinforcers, secondary reinforcers, spontaneous recovery, shaping,
extinction curves. Positive reinforcement is when an appetitive
stimulus (a rewarding one like food) is provided. Negative
reinforcement, despite the oxymoronic name, is also a good thing --
an aversive stimulus is removed (and thus rewarded). We drop a coin
into a vending machine and receive an item: that's positive
reinforcement. We fasten our seat belts when we get into the car to
stop an annoying buzzer: that's negative reinforcement. I know the
wording is perverse, but it's Skinnerian. There is also negative
punishment (withholding a positive reward) and positive punishment
(providing an aversive one) although I don't think, of all the
aspects of learning theory we have, that scientists have fully
understand all the components and aftermath of punishment. I tell my
students how the environment includes the punisher for punishment
but not for reinforcement, so that the behavioral tendency is
increased universally with reward but only diminished in the
presence of the punisher or ones like him or her for punishment.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I have yet to read a convincing case for the
converse equality of reinforcement and punishment.

The most effective reinforcement schedule for task acquisition is to
reward every instance. Unfortunately this is also the schedule which
is most easy to snuff out once the reward is withheld. So if you
reward your kids every time they clean their rooms, for instamce,
once you stop paying them, they will stop cleaning. But if you work
on a partial reinforcement schedule, and reward them after every
third or fourth cleaning, they will continue to work much longer
after the reward has stopped. This is called resistance to
extinction and it's one goal of neurofeedback because the bells and
blips will not be available forever to the client.

There are four partial reinforcement schedules: variable ratio and
variable interval, and fixed ratio and fixed interval. The variable
ratio schedule (VR) is the best. More than any reinforcement
schedule, VR speeds task acquisition and tasks acquired with it
resist extinction. VR built Las Vegas out there in the desert, and
it is quite visible in slot machines. For VR, the individual is
rewarded on average after some amount of behavior. In slot machines
VR may be set to every 50 or 100 pulls. As long as the payoff is
appropriate for the schedule rate, an individual will repeat the
behavior indefinitely. Slot machines layer multiple VR schedules on
top of each other to produce behavior quickly acquired and extremely
resistant to extinction. Large payoffs occur infrequently (but
predictably in a statistical sense) and smaller payoffs occur
frequently (and predictably again, in a statistical sense).
Predictably in the sense that a $1 million payoff occurs on average
after every 100 million pulls or so. All games should incorporate
multiple reinforcement schedules by the use of multiple layers of
reward, be it screen completion, bonus scores, or sudden completion
of task. More important than the schedule is reward delivery, which
should be discrete like the hypothalamic shocks to rats I mentioned
above. Those rats literally died from starvation because they
stimulated their brain rather than sought food. That is the best
advertisement and evidence of the power of discrete rewards. Had the
shocks come about regardless of their actions, with peaks and
valleys of activity perhaps as they came near the bar they were
suppose to press, then food consumption would have been option. But
they all died, because the rewards were discrete and focal.

Finally, one last aspect of operant conditioning is the stage of
immediate consolidation, the sensory pause after a reinforcement has
been given in order to strengthen the linkages between behavior and
response, and presumably to weaken the linkages with other behaviors
in this context). Thirty years ago, Sterman, Clemente, Marczynski (a
decade later) and colleagues quite clearly revealed the presence of
a consolidation period immediately after response and rewards. Few
if any learning theorists seemed to be aware of their discovery,
however. I reviewed the operant conditioning literature and except
for those mentioned above, I find nothing about immediate
consolidation, probably because outside of this field few scientists
investigate EEG during operant conditioning . In 1981 Ted Marczynski
and colleagues identified how blocked consolidation led to slower
learning in cats. Kaiser (1994) documented this process in humans,
perhaps for the first time. Learning is a two-step discrete process
that involves sampling of the environment followed by consolidation
of associations. This consolidation period is evident in one's EEG
as a post-response synchronization, i.e., a dominant frequency burst
after response and reinforcement. The beep and visual reward signals
to the client that the desired behavior was performed, now it is
time to consolidate. The next couple of seconds are spent
strengthening the internal linkages, an unconscious process that can
be derailed when the environment prods the client for more
behaviors. When there is no break in training, either the client
makes one him or herself, or a client continues to sample the
environment even after the behavioral criteria is met, which is
essentially informing them that the goal behavior was not the goal.
In my study, subjects who failed to alpha burst, missed the material
they needed to process as shown by missing the items on later
recognition tests. It's strange that so little is understand about
this part of learning, despite Skinner's work.

But of course Skinner didn't use electrodes.

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