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

Vol. 7 No. 10 - October 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 - Knowledge in the Information Age
News & Reviews - Books & journal papers
Events & Locations - Conferences, Courses
Last Word - Information about Mental Health

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Announcements - News

Surface Brain Stimulation May Ease Parkinson's Symptoms
Brain Scan Helps Diagnose Bipolar Disorder
Brain Scan Shows Differences in Truth, Lying
Brain Abnormality Linked to Hyperactivity Disorder
Obesity in Women Linked with Brain Tissue Loss
Chronic Pain Shrinks People's Brains
Brain Area Found to Be Smaller in Cocaine Addicts

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


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In the Spotlight

Knowledge in the Information Age

In the May 1999 issue, I reviewed brain science during the Decade of
the Brain, as George Bush (Ws's father) and Congress officially
christened the 1990s. During the 1990s, Science magazine reported an
"explosive growth" in the number of scientists identifying
themselves as neuroscientists, about a 1000 more each year. We've
all witnessed the change in mass media reporting in the last few
years. It is now common place for a major news weekly to feature a
cover article on the brain, mental health, or related scientific
issues. In fact, Newsweek ran one on memory just this week.

In May 1999, I asked whether the last decade of the millenium
actually should have been designated the DOB " Decade of the Brain".
When it came to the brain sciences, was the final decade of the
second millenium really DOB -- or DOA?

For the initial survey, I randomly sampled five terms in
neuroscience, five in mental health, and five in medicine for the
baseline. In this update, I used all publications as the baseline,
which is so much better:


Keyword term 1990 2000 %Increase in Publications

Neuroscience

Hippocampus 2187 3854 64%
Amygdala 436 762 75%
Frontal lobe 745 2074 178%
Neuron 8113 13671 69%
GABA 1514 2241 48%

Average:
87%

Mental Health

ADHD 210 580 76%
Schizophrenia 1526 2471 62%
Depression 5044 6712 33%
Anxiety 2387 3495 46%
PTSD 509 1061 108%

Average:
65%

All publications 397,946 517,405 30%

Others

Neurofeedback 10 28 180%
EEG 2190 2706 23%
fMRI 3892 10,639 173%

So the scientific world experienced an increase of 30% more
publications during the 1990s. Against this baseline, mental health
research doubled and neuroscience nearly tripled its output, so it
was a DOB using this line of argument. Neurofeedback exploded, but
that wasn't hard, given the paucity of papers indexed in Medline. I
suspect that only one-third or less of all peer- reviewed research
in the field of neurofeedback is indexed by Medline at this moment.
For instance I know more work appears in PsycInfo.

Since 1949, the first year of Medline indexing, there have been a
total of 85 thousand EEG papers indexed. However, functional MRI
(magnetic resonance imaging) has about 130 thousand in a much
shorter timespan (the earliest technique papers appeared in 1985)

How has EEG research fared over the decades? A look at the
percentage of EEG papers that make up Medline over the last half
century reveals that we may have stablized at about one paper in
200, with a slight peak in the 1970s.

Decade EEG papers Total papers Percentage

1950-1959 1434 1,033,666 0.14%
1960-1969 10717 1,597,426 0.67%
1970-1979 19185 2,400,244 0.80 %
1980-1989 18032 3,224,477 0.56%
1990-1999 22921 4,287,064 0.53%

A review of Medline's history reveals the history of biomedical
research and scientific writing (and presumably progress) in
general.

Decade Millions papers Percent increase

1950-1959 1.0
1960-1969 1.6 54%
1970-1979 2.4 50%
1980-1989 3.2 34%
1990-1999 4.3 33%



This trend was surprising. We are so accustomed to information
overload and geometric growth in the Information Age, that it is
almost reassuring to see this linear trend in growth in
publications. Unlike other sources of information, the peer-reviewed
kind increases slowly. In fact, the doubling rate was 11 years in
1950 (1961 before the number of publications double). The doubling
rate has slowed down ever since, taking 20 year to double in 1960,
31 years in 1970, and so on. Our current numbers won't double until
2061 or so. Compare this to Moore's Law, which has a twenty-fold
increase in the number of transistors in the standard PC since the
May 1999 article appeared. Or the rise of television. In 1949 there
were one million TV sets in the US. This grew fifty-fold in the
following decade (50 million in 1959). We had one cable channel 30
years ago (HBO), now we have a thousand, controlled by 60 cable
networks.

By 2015, links to the home are predicted to rise to 2.5 Gigabits per
second, 50,000 times faster than the modem I currently use (56K
bit/s). By 2010, a typical disk drive will hold a 2 Terabytes of
data (that's two million Megs) and move data around at 200 Gbyte/s.
I recall the first computer I owned, a 1979 Trash-80 (TRS-80) from
Radio Shack which had 4,000 bytes of memory, just enough to play
Star Trek using keyboard characters as the elements (the Enterprise
was an @, the Klingon Bird of Prey spaceship the letter V, stars *
of course, and explosions a string of punctuation !@#%&). I envied
my friend who owned a 16K Commodore... and sometimes still do.

The amount of information in one Sunday New York Times is greater
than the amount of information an 18th century person in England was
exposed to in his lifetime. Of course, few of us read through the
entire 5-lb monster so it is still more written words than we are
likely to consume in a lifetime. Of course if we count the bits of
information flowing across our TV or computer screens any given
minute, we are each exposed to more information in one day than the
entire world's population encountered in its entire lifetime just
last year. Or so it feels some days.

But that is information, not knowledge. Looking at the history of
Medline, it appears that knowledge -- our understanding of the world
and ourselves -- increases far more slowly than the Information Age
would have us believe.

-DK
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News & Reviews

NEW BOOKS

Neuronal Substrates of Sleep and Epilepsy
by Mircea Steriade
Examines neuronal mechanisms underlying sleep and paroxysmal
activities. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ ASIN/0521817072/top100

Antisocial Behavior in Children and Adolescents
by John B. Reid, et al
Approaches to reduce antisocial behavior, from the earliest years in
childhood onward. --www.amazon.com/exec/
obidos/ASIN/1557988978/top100

Neuropsychological Assessment
by Muriel Deutsch Lezak
Thousand-page manual and reference of neuropsychological assessment
tools. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ ASIN/0195090314/top100

Navigating the Social World: for Asperger's Syndrome...
by Jeannie McAfee, Dr. Tony Attwood
Exercises and guides for the student with AS.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1885477821/top100

Fundamentals of Polysomnography and Sleep Disorders
by Thomas M. Kilkenny
The art of polysomnography is detailed in this training guide.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0972035702/top100

Birth of the Mind: How Tiny Number of Genes Creates Complexities of
Human Thought
by Gary Marcus
Explains classic genetics and brain experiments to the layperson.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0465044050/top100

Under the Influence : A Guide to the Myths and Realities of
Alcoholism
by JR Milam, K Ketcham
Examines the physical factors that set alcoholics and non-alcoholics
apart. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0553274872/top100

Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children
by Jonathan Kellerman
Novelist views on "childhood criminality" and the moral development
of children. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ ASIN/0345429397/top100

Fundamental Neuroscience, 2nd Edition
Edited
Comprehensive textbook that both graduate and undergraduate
students. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 0126603030/top100

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JOURNAL PAPERS

Interhemispheric transfer in high-functioning autism : Poor
interhemispheric transfer may be involved in autism.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15230457

Is insomnia a neurophysiological disorder? Sleep EEG microstructure.
: Insomnia may often be due to neurophysiological disturbance of
regulatory mechanisms of sleep control which impact sleep duration,
intensity, continuity and stability.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15245764

Frontal-subcortical circuitry in OCD : Left orbitofrontal volumes
are smaller in OCD patients and size correlated negatively with
symptom severity.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15377742

Reduction of EEG power during expectancy periods in humans. : All
bands decreased in power during expectancy periods of a cognitive
task.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15366247

Mortality attributable to harmful drinking in USA 2000. : 64,000
deaths were attributable to harmful drinking in the U.S. in 2000,
46,000 were men. Harmful drinking accounts for 4% of all deaths
among men, 1.5% among women.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15376828

Diagnosing and treating attentional difficulties: a nationwide
survey. : 94% of child psychiatrists and 29% of pediatricians
routinely dealt with attentional difficulties.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15383433

Can left prefrontal rTMS be used as a maintenance treatment for
bipolar depression? : One full year of weekly TMS may be used as an
adjunctive maintenance treatment for some patients with bipolar
depression.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15390210

Problematic alcohol and cannabis use in adolescence--risk of adult
substance abuse? : Adolescent use of both cannabis and alcohol is
more problematic than either alone with regard to escalation as an
adult.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15385221

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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

Dallas TX Jan 13-16
Orlando FL Feb 24-27
Phoenix AZ Mar 10-13
Boston MA Apr 7-10

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

Information about Mental Health

After my brief rant on knowledge above, I act almost hypocritically
by providing a slew of information about mental health -- without
interpretation, without reflective digestion. You'll have to turn
this raw mass into knowledge.

Every dollar invested in drug treatment generates $7 in savings to
taxpayers.

The DSM-I in 1952 defined a mere 60 disorders; in 1994 the DSM-IV
identified 410 disorders.

In 1955, half a million Americans were institutionalized for mental
illness. Today, it is only 65 thousand.

Treatment reduces participants' illegal drug use by 40 percent.
More schizophrenics are in jail than in psychiatric institutions.
Providing treatment to all addicts in the US would save more than
$150 billion in social costs over 15 years, while requiring just $21
billion in treatment costs.

Criminal activity dropped by two-thirds after offenders completed
drug treatment, and the more time spent in treatment, the greater
the reduction in individual criminal activity. Client homelessness
drops 43% after drug treatment.

Nine in 10 adults have ever used alcohol; 4 in 10 marijuana. A
million US residents were treated in substance abuse treatment
facilities last year; 40% had problems with both drugs and alcohol

Every year 1 in 4 adults in the US have a diagnosable mental
disorder. Lifetime prevalence is 1 in 2.

1 in 18 suffer with a serious mental Illness. 12.6% suffer from
anxiety disorders, 9.5% substance use disorders (7.4% alcohol abuse/
3.1% drug abuse), 9.5% affective disorders (5% major depression,
1.2% manic depression), 2.7% severe cognitive impairment, 2.1%
obsessive-compulsive disorder, 1.5% antisocial personality disorder,
and 1.1% schizophrenic disorders

$28.3 billion were spent on mental health care in 1992; 40 percent
came from State mental health agencies; 17 percent from client fees;
31 percent from Federal government sources including Medicaid &
Medicare; 8 percent from local governments and 4 percent from all
other sources.

Women are twice as likely to suffer unipolar depression than men,
nearly twice as likely to suffer an anxiety disorder, but men are
twice as likely to suffer from an addiction or substance abuse
problem.

Serious mental illness is more common among women than men, is
elevated among the unmarried, among persons with less than $20,000
family income, and among those with less than a college education.

1 in 9 children exhibit a serious emotional disturbance. 1 in 15 are
significantly impaired by this condition (about 2 per classroom).
There were 30,000 suicides in American last year, twice the homicide
rate, and the 3rd leading cause of death in teenagers. The suicide
rate has tripled in teens since 1950.

Sources: CA Dept of Alcohol & Drug Programs, National Institute of
Mental Health, RAND Corporation, Center for Mental Health Services,
Office of Natl Drug Control Policy, and Substance Abuse & Mental
Health Services Admin
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