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

Vol. 7 No. 12 - December 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 - Books for a Young Neurotherapist
News & Reviews - Books & journal papers
Events & Locations - Conferences, Courses
Last Word - Vulnerable to Vocabulary

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Booze boosts brainpower
Magnetic Stimulation Alters Brain
Scientists Peer Into Circuitry of Live Animal Brain
Brain processes whistled language too
Brain theory of eating disorders
Meditation Gives Brain a Charge
Breakups Can Be Mapped in the Brain
Toys have lasting impact on 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

Books for a Young Neurotherapist

This week's New Yorker magazine featured a short autobiographical
work by one of its staff writers in which we are told how Hemingway
often distributed a list of great books he believed every author
should read. I couldn't find the list of books online, but such
advice reminded me of Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet", a
remarkably profound piece of writing and advice. In 1903, a young
poet named Franz Xaver Kappus wrote to Rainer Maria Rilke, an
established poet, and to his delight the poet wrote back. They
continued a correspondence for six years and the book "Letters"
contains Rilke's ten letters to the young man, his advice on poetry
and life. In his fourth letter Rilke advises Kappus to "try to love
the questions themselves." He follows this advice with "Don't search
for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you
would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live
everything. Live the questions now." Wise advice for any young
person facing the uncertainities of life and career. [The letters
are online at http://www.sfgoth.com/~immanis/rilke/letter1.html .]

My advise to young neurotherapists, neuroscientists, or interested
laypersons, less profound than Rilke's, but also significantly
shorter is this: do not overlook origins. If possible, trace
whatever you are interested in back to its starting point. If not
possible, trace it back as far as you can. As the Earl of Oxford put
it, What is past is prologue. Our origins reveal our way and our
destiny, the essence of what we are.

Following Hemingway's approach, my advice also includes a list of
books, again significantly shorter in length, that every
neurotherapist should read. And by neurotherapist I refer to anyone
who looks toward the structure of the human mind and brain to
resolve our problems today. I would make but three books required
reading, none of them directly concerned with brainwaves:

The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior by Jane Goodall.
Evolutionary psychology is often a euphemisn for sex research
nowadays, but for those truly interested in humanity's origin, what
we think we know about our nearest non-human cousins and what we
actually do know rarely overlap. An exploration of the lives of a
single troop, from dominance to infanticide and forgiveness.

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
by Julian Jaynes. A historian of psychology and science at
Princeton, Julian Jaynes died recently, although not before he
identified the major transformation of our mental system in the
historical record, the invention of (self-)consciousness. And
although I wonder how much he understood the particulars of the
process (the role of writing and right hemisphere propositional
thought), he recognized how the development of humanity's newest
tool, a communal metaphorization of mental experience, led to the
rise of our present day world. Ironically, Jaynes was the second to
recognize the fundamental psychical discontinuity in our species'
mental history, the first being a classics professor 20 years
before, Bruno Snell, in The Discovery of the Mind in Greek
Philosophy and Literature.

Life of the Mind: Selected Papers by Jason W. Brown. An update on
Hughlings Jackson's prescient insight into perception, memory, and
mental experience known as "regression" and the role of evolutionary
processes in an individual's thought. Jackson's regression theory
was probably the basis of Freud's understanding of the human psyche.

Thus endeth the required reading. No William James, no Freud
exactly, no Jung, no Luria, no Skinner (thank goodness!).

For an "undergraduate" introduction to the brain, I would recommend
the following books:

An Anthropologist On Mars by Oliver Sacks. Nine case histories or
so, including the world's most famous autistic individual Temple
Grandin. (Nearly anything by Sacks is worthwhile and highly
readable, especially The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and
Awakenings.)

Extraordinary People: Understanding Savant Syndrome by Donald
Treffert MD. A review of autistic savants and brain research.

Medicine, Mind, and the Double Brain: A Study in Nineteenth-Century
Thought by Anne Harrington. A review of the two of the greatest
"empirical philosophers of the mind" (i.e., brain scientists) of the
recent past, Paul Broca and John Hughlings Jackson.

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal
by Jared Diamond

The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human
Intelligence by Carl Sagan.

Phantoms in the Brainby V. S. Ramachandran, who discusses unusual
brain injury cases.

Perhaps the best advice to anyone who is in love with the questions
is what Rilke said in his first letter. For validation, for proof,
for insight, for whatever quest you are on, "Go into yourself." Apt
advice for exploring the human mind.

-DK

Related readings:

http://solo17.abac.com/whatsnew/coolmeme
http://solo17.abac.com/whatsnew/bookchap/members/dakaiser.htm

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News & Reviews

Paul Broca: Founder of French Anthropology, Explorer of the Brain
by Francis Schiller
The life of Paul Broca, pioneer in cerebral localization and
lateralization. An interesting read into the origins of these
approaches.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195074963/top100

A Family's Guide to Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
by L. Eugene Arnold MD
Q&A format to help families understand terminology, diagnostic
tests, and treatment options for ADHD.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/193198140X/top100

Epilepsy as a Dynamic Disease
by P. Jung, et al
Explores possibility of implanting device in epileptics that detects
and subverts seizures.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3540427627/top100

Poe's Heart and the Mountain Climber : Exploring the Effect of
Anxiety...
by Richard Restak
Explores significant experiments in neuroscience on anxiety and
other investigations into anxiety
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400048508/top100

Essentials of Clinical Neurophysiology
by Thomas C. Head
Outlines the theory and practice of such neurodiagnostic techniques
as electroencephalography, electromyography with nerve conductions,
evoked potentials, and polysomnography.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0750674415/top100

Learning the Language of Addiction Counseling
by Geri Miller
Review of addiction counseling basics for clinicians and grad
students.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471696129/ top100

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JOURNAL PAPERS

Electroencephalographic biofeedback as a treatment for ADHD :
Reviews rationale for EEG biofeedback and examines empirical support
for treatment such as positive clinical responses 3/4ths of patients
treated in controlled group studies.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15564052

Neurofeedback treatment of epilepsy. : Electroencephalographic
biofeedback can eliminate seizures or reduce the amount of
medication required to control them.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15564057

Neurofeedback with anxiety and affective disorders. : A more recent
neuroscience technology, electroencephalographic biofeedback, holds
promise as a methodology for retraining abnormal brain wave
patterns.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15564054

Emerging brain-based interventions for children : Brief overview of
emerging interventions as to their success via medical standard.
Neurofeedback is effective for ADHD, seizure disorders, anxiety,
depression, and traumatic brain injury.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15564050

Applicability of brain wave biofeedback to substance use disorder in
adolescents. : Discusses medication-free, neurophysiologic, and
self-actualizing treatment for a substance-based.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15564055

Mapping the brain in autism. : Abnormalities in neuroanatomy and
connectivity of limbic-striatal 'social' brain systems may underlie
autism.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15548557

Drug Abuse Trends among Youth in the United States. : Except for an
increase usage of MDMA, illicit teen use of drugs such as tobacco,
alcohol, inhalants, marijuana, LSD, cocaine, heroin, and
methamphetamine has remained stable.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15542750

Evaluating the endophenotype model of ADHD neuropsychological
deficit : According to the authors, a neurogenetic model of ADHD is
supportable only for a subset of executive functions.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15535793

Functional architecture of human empathy. : Proposes a model of
empathy involving neural representations of self- awareness, mental
flexibility, and emotion regulation.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15537986

Hippocampal gray matter reduction in teens with history of
prematurity. : Left hippocampal tissue loss may be responsible for
memory impairments found in premature subjects.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15528087

Abnormal brain activity in prefrontal brain regions in abstinent
marijuana users. : Marijuana users display persistent metabolic
alterations in brain regions responsible for executive cognitive
functioning and they may recruit alternative networks to compensate
for this, possibly leading to maladaptive behaviors.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15528091

Albert Einstein and LD: an evaluation of the evidence. : Several
organizations involved with learning disabilities claim that
Einstein had one. There is no evidence to support this claim.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15505944

Theory of Mind and social beliefs in adolescents with traumatic
brain injury. : Impaired social performance is common after TBI, yet
the neuropsychology underlying this impairment is not well
understood.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15502257

Neural changes following remediation in adult developmental
dyslexia. : Tutored dyslexic adults produces increased activity in
left-hemisphere regions engaged by normal readers and right
perisylvian cortical activity.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15504323

Effects of marijuana on neurophysiological signals of working and
episodic memory. : Marijuana decreases global theta power and
responses in a working memory task were accompanied by reduced alpha
band reactivity in response to increased task difficulty.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15502936
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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

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


Vulnerable to Vocabulary

PubMed -- Public Medline -- organizes the entire realm of biomedical
research including much of psychology and nearly all of psychiatry
into a hierarchical linguistic scheme guided by what they call their
"controlled vocabulary". Only certain keywords are allowed to exist
in their database and all existing words have clear and well-defined
relationships with all other words. Medline itself is one of the
best source of information in the world, containing 40 years of
biomedical research, constantly updating, with more than 12 million
bibliographic citations and abstracts from nearly 5,000 journals in
70 countries. But the term "controlled vocabulary" gives me the
willies. It sounds Orwellian. Too much of the world -- social and
political -- has already been adulterated by controlled vocabulary.
Must our science follow suit?

In George Orwell's novel "1984", those in power recast the words of
their language so as to narrow the range of thinking among the
populace, with the ultimate goal of eliminating politically
undesirable thought. The idea behind Newspeak, as it was called, was
that if people lack the terms to think for themselves, they won't.
Wordless categories tend to die. In psychology, this is known as
linguistic determinism or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. To speeden
their demise, some concepts had their labels hijacked and redefined
so that the words now meant the exact opposite. Concentration camps
were called "joycamps", the "Ministry of Plenty" was the rationing
department, the "Clear Skies Initiative" was legislation used to
weaken the Clean Air Act... oops, that wasn't part of the novel and
doesn't belong in quotations. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Newspeak eliminates what's salient and concrete, whatever can be
visualized. If de-visualization is not an option, sleight of hand
always is: ignore the core and draw focus to a tiny aspect of the
event in question.

The recent Gulf Wars have been a major source of Orwellian-speak.
Civilian casualties are now called "collateral damage", first strike
is now a more justifiable "preemptive counterattack." Military
advisors, once called troops, put their rifles into nonretention
mode in order to service a target. Let's hope none of us are ever
that target. Such doublespeak is not new. During World War II there
was the Pacification program of Japan and during the Vietnam
Conflict (!) there was "air support" -- two terms for the same
thing, the dropping of aerial ordnance, or "vertically deployed
anti-personnel devices" as it's now called. Actually, I pulled my
punch there; it's actually called, in the collective, effects-based
operations, a term so unassailable to the mind's eye even the
military cannot agree on its definition.

Psychology is not immune to Newspeak. The homeless, the mentally
ill, and single-parent homes were once bums, crazy, and broken
homes. PTSD was once concisely known as "shell shock." Environmental
groups ask for money to save the swamps-- oops, "wetlands" as the
world loses its jungle... umm, rainforest faster than it can be
replenished. Spontaneous energetic disassembly doesn't sound so bad,
except if you are working in a nuclear power plant when one happens.
Corporate irregularities are no longer accounting fraud and "sound
science" often isn't, and both serve corporate interests. The
government avoids raising taxes but passes new revenue enhancements
whenever possible. I would protest against such a perversion of
English if I didn't have to do it within a free speech zone (which
once extended from sea to shining sea).

Invasions are no more. They have been replaced by police actions,
peacekeeping mission, interventions, or now simply liberations. When
they fail, the military does not retreat but undergoes a phased
departure as did in Vietnam. Power is control and those who control
our metaphors, our vocabulary, control our minds, or at least our
communal ability to respond and organize. The battle is one of
words, not ideas. We are all so vulnerable to words. We lose an
argument the instant we adopt the words of our opponents. Addiction
in America is either a disease or a war on drugs; it cannot be both.

So, after that tangent, I wondered whether I would find any Newspeak
in a glossary named in Orwellian fashion "Controlled Vocabulary."
(Actually, the proper Orwellian label would be something benign in
tone like "Vocabulary Assistance" or "Universal Lexicon").

I love the Medline service and fortunately little Newspeak was
found, just one item: Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity,
introduced in 1984, was originally known as minimal brain
dysfunction and even classified in the 1960s under chronic brain
damage. Perhaps this rephrasing is helpful in that it focuses on the
symptoms, or proximate psychological cause of the disorder. But
perhaps not, because it obscures one possible cause. and allows
diagnosis by non-medical professionals.

Neither neurofeedback nor neurotherapy are listed in the controlled
vocabulary, but EEG and Biofeedback are. Biofeedback was introduced
in 1977 and falls under (1) Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic
Techniques and Equipment Category, (2) Therapeutics, (3)
Complementary Therapies, (4) Mind-Body and Relaxation Techniques,
(5) Biofeedback (Psychology)

For fun, I keyed in a few common terms to see if they pass
controlled-vocabulary muster.

"Love" has always been around, since the database's inception, but
life is relatively new to the neighborhood (introduced in 1997). Sex
is old, but safe sex is new (2001). Death was present from the
beginning, but God has yet to make an appearance. Freedom was
recognized in 1991, terrorism ten years later, and new terms are
added every week. In fact the term "Gulf War" was added during the
time it took me to write this brief article. I kid you not. See for
yourself,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=mesh&list_uids=68047830

-DK
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