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

Vol. 9 No. 6 - June 2006

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
author's only. Copyright (C) 2006 by EEG Spectrum
Intl, Inc. or David Kaiser. All rights reserved.
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Announcements - News
In the Spotlight - The World is Too Much with Us
News & Reviews - Books & journal papers
Events & Locations - Conferences, Courses
Last Word - Re-evaluating one's belief system
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Announcements

Last month marked the 100th issue of this newsletter!

* 'Mind over matter' no longer science fiction
* Stroke Patients' Family Caregivers Need More Support
* Over time, memories may grow more positive
* Study Compares Brain Aneurysm Treatments
* Freethinking scientist ponders the brain
* A Tale of Two Schools
* Inside the Autistic Mind

All links at: news.yahoo.com/fc/Science/Brain_Research
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In the Spotlight

The World is Too Much with Us


Sometimes it is enough just to remember
There was once a time before we knew about time
When the self and the world fit snugly together.

Birds, bees, bats, and pterodactyls developed wings.
Monkeys, apes, and humans developed color vision. The
first occurred because of common environmental
pressures, the 2nd because a distant ancestor passed
down the ability to her many descendents. The first
is an example of convergent evolution, the second
divergent. Divergent evolution is the more familiar
form of evolution, due to genetics, but both
processes work to shape life and the latter is more
interesting because it suggests commonalities about
the environment across species.

I bring up convergent evolution because of
hemispheric specialization - each hemisphere of the
brain specialized for its own complement of functions
such as speech, math, or face recognition.
Hemispheric specialization is present in species as
diverse as birds, rats, dolphins, and humans, and it
is likely a product of convergent evolution. Cerebral
asymmetry arose in both mammals and birds, creatures
who are similar in appearance only, if that.
Convergent evolution indicates common environment
pressures at work, but what selective pressures are
shared by killer bees and killer whales? What in the
world split the rat brain, bird brain, whale brain,
and my child's brain into PC and Mac? Was it an
accident of nature, or a necessity?

Evolution is the story of organisms adapting to a
larger organisms or worlds. Adaptation involves
acquisition of rules and acquiring rules, through
heritage or experience, allows one to respond to
challenges. Animal that falter or fail to acquire
appropriate responses do not live to play another
day, but what are these rules? What inspired neurons
to duplicate and specialize into PC and Mac on a wide
scale?

We do know that the world designed us. Theological
considerations aside (whether we live in God's world
or nature's), each organism is a work of art,
sculpted out of raw materials and refined through 3.8
billion years of constant vigorous evolutionary
pressure. So what made a double-brain design
advantageous through all those years of biological
sand blasting? Why did only bihemispheric vertebrates
survive?

The answer lies with the environment. All organisms
seek a balance between themselves and the
environment, a balance between reward and risk. A
balance presumes the idea of a self in all creatures
and surely animals conceive of themselves as we do, a
part of existence under intimate and immediate
control. Some animal may have selves that only extend
to their bodies and little else, perhaps into their
young, but social animals are something else. We --as
well as dolphins and dogs, to name conspicious
members of the social predators club on this planet
-- include our companions and other members of the
tribe into our self. And young social animals have
little sense of self to speak of, which is why
playing fetch for hours isn't tiresome to children.
In fact willingness to play fetch or catch or
shagging fly balls is central to understanding
ourselves. All of these games are social, even
cross-special, indicating a greater sense of self
than any non-social animal could possess. When I
worked with dolphins years ago, I spent hours
reaching my hand into their mouths to retrieve balls,
games across the species-line, and such trust games
were rewarding into the wee hours for both me and the
dolphins. "Are you still playing with them?" I hear
ringing in my ears. Yes, and so should you, because
the human sense of control and consent always must be
in the process of extending, across others as well as
space and time. But we need to remember how each
person makes his or her own path and decides on his
or her own where to lay the boundary between world
and self, and for each child and adult setting the
dividing line is the greatest challenge they will
ever face, as they face it alone.

The world is too much with us.

World and self distinctions reflect hemispheric
differences, what nature developed to handle the
separation between others and oneself. The left
hemisphere provides a universal self, one filled with
categories and abstraction such as catness or
blueness, while the right hemisphere provides a
cherish and nurtured view, individualized and
concrete, a memory of a particular cat or sky.
Platonic logos struggles against Aristotlean
diversity in all of us.

Flor-Henry (1969) was one of the first to consider
hemispheric specialization and mental illness and he
discovered how left- and right-sided foci in temporal
lobe epilepsy were associated with schizophrenia and
manic-depression. Others made much of the left/right
brain distinction in emotional and mental
disturbances such as children who exhibit socially
inappropriate behavior and have difficulty perceiving
emotional states of others who were found to be right
brain damaged. The world never gains status in such a
child, but what may be worse , definitely worse, is
those children in whom the self never gains status.
That is the worse form of mental illness and surely
the future of this field as nothing else but learning
-- not pharmaceuticals or love -- can resolve it.

Selected References

Glick, S.D. (1985) Cerebral lateralization in
nonhuman species, New York: Academic Press.

Lerner, J., Nachshon, I., & Carmon, A. (1977)
Responses of paranoid and non-paranoid schizophrenics
in a dichotic listening task. J Nervous Mental
Diseases, 164, 247-252.

Voeller, K. (1986) Right-hemisphere deficit
syndrome in children, Am J Psychiatry, 143, 1004-1009.

Wordsworth, W (1807). The world is too much with us.

-DK
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News & Reviews

NEW BOOKS

Conversations on Consciousness: What the Best Minds
Think About the Brain, Free Will...
by Susan Blackmore
Interviews with leading figures in study of
consciousness.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195179587/eegspectrum

Alcohol Abuse Revolution: Complementary and
Alternative...
by Donna J. Cornett
Alternative medicine to reduce alcohol craving and
consumption.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0976372029/eegspectrum

Only a Mother Could Love Him : My Life with and
Triumph over ADD
by Benjamin Polis
Guide to managing ADHD from a mother's perspective.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345471881/eegspectrum

Concise Guide to Evaluation and Management of Sleep
Disorders
by Martin Reite, et al
General practitioner guide to sleep problems
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585620459/eegspectrum

Breaking The Grip Of Dangerous Emotions
by Janet Maccaro
Personal perspective on beating stress and negative
emotions.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591857872/eegspectrum

Interactive Play for Children with Autism
by Diana Seach
Introduction to the value of play in social and
emotional development of children.
--www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415333261/eegspectrum
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JOURNAL PAPERS

Failing to deactivate: Resting functional
abnormalities in autism. : Social impairment
correlated with activity in ventral medial prefrontal
cortex, which is perhaps indicative of abnormal
internally directed processes at rest for autistics.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16702548

Functional MRI to study brain plasticity in clinical
neurology. : Exhaustion of adaptive properties of
cerebral cortex may be responsible for 'fixed'
neurological deficits.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16708177

QEEG discordance: predicting cocaine-dependent
treatment attrition. : Concordant (high perfusion
correlate) patients had much higher successful
treatment completion rate than discordant patients.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16720798

Self-Regulation of Slow Cortical Potentials in
Seizure Patients. : Decreased seizure frequency from
this form of neurofeedback training may be due to
inhibition in cortical areas proximal to active
electrodes, frontal cortex, and thalamus.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16691432

An fMRI task battery for assessing hemispheric
language dominance in children. : Techniques to
assess hemispheric dominance for language in
children, to identify athological language
organization.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16651012

Discriminative analysis of brain function at
resting-state for ADHD : Abnormalities in prefrontal
cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, along with
other areas, discriminated the ADHD brain from
others.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16685993

Simultaneous EEG and fMRI applied to epilepsy. :
Integrating of both electrophysiologic and metabolic
information provides much insight into cerebral
physiology.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16630747

Brain network dysfunction in bipolar disorder. :
Bipolar disorder may arise from abnormalities within
networks like the the anterior limbic network, not a
localized lesion.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16641836

Adolescent risk behaviors and religion: Findings from
a national study. : Religiosity was associated with
reduced risk behaviors in smoking, marijuana and
alcohol use, truancy, sexual activity, and
depression.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16677701

Hippocampal volume in chronic PTSD : Hippocampal
volumes in chronic PTSD patients compared to controls
were similar, despite other short term studies
finding differences.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16701903

Does neuroscience hold promise for the further
development of behavior therapy? : Integration of
biological and psychological models are extremely
important for treating many disorders.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16696847

Observation of children with ADHD problems in
classroom contexts. : children with ADHD were more
disruptive and inattentive than peers and less
on-task.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16719970

Post-lesional cerebral reorganisation : Functional
neuroimaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation
were used to assess post-lesional brain plasticity.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16723211


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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 (subject to change)

* Washington DC Jun 22-25
* Raleigh/Durham, NC Jul 20-23
* Los Angeles CA - Aug 17-20
* Philadelphia, PA Sep 14-17
* Chicago IL Oct 19-22
* Portland OR Nov 16-19
* Los Angeles CA Dec 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.


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Conferences for Neurofeedback Clinicians & Researchers

CONFERENCE LOCATION DATES

ISNR www.isnr.org Atlanta GA Sep 7-10

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Last Word

Re-evaluating one's belief system (100 issues later)

May marked the 100th issue of WNIN, this newsletter.
To see how the longest webzine dedicated to mental
health has held up, here is the first Last Word from
Jan 1998, unedited, with only minimal wincing by the
editor upon reading the original editor's work, a 33
y man-child who wrote it and who shares my name and
genes.

A common criticism of neurofeedback is its remarkable
ability to treat numerous disorders. Most scientists
are skeptical of "panaceas" If you say you have a
technique or molecule that treats more than, say,
three conditions, their panacea detector in their
head goes off and they usually suspect this
intervention treats none.

One of the problems lies in the categorization of
disorders made by DSM IV, which defines conditions
mostly based on symptoms, age at onset, predisposing
factors, and prognosis. The neurophysiological and
neuroanatomical substrates of disorders are
overlooked. Thus disorders that reflect similar
cortical dysfunction are delineated from each other.
When a treatment is developed which targets a
specific neurophysiological dysfunction, a whole host
of DSM-IV conditions can be impacted. Studies have
found that Prozac is effective in treating bulimia,
anorexia nervosa, adult and childhood depression,
fibromyalgia, and some autistic symptoms. Are we to
believe that Prozac must not work on any, as more
than three are listed? Did Eli Lilly develop the drug
to affect one DSM condition, or as I suspect, did
they target a specific neurotransmitter system.
Clinical studies have found Depakote to be effective
in treating migraines, anxiety, and complex partial
(epileptic) seizures. What if the term neurofeedback
appeared in the previous sentence where Depakote now
appears? Any difference in reaction from those
skeptics?

Grant applications also fall victim to DSM
balkanization. One reviewer of a chemical dependency
grant rejected the grant partly on the grounds that
although there was good evidence of alpha-theta
neurofeedback being effective in treating alcoholism,
there was no evidence whatsoever of alpha-theta
neurofeedback being effective in treating chemical
dependency. I can think of no two conditions in the
DSM IV that resemble each other more and co-occur
more often than alcoholism and substance abuse. But
because the DSM IV describes these disorders on
different pages under different headings, they are
treated as two separate and unrelated entities in the
minds of many scientists.

The other problem with the acceptance of
neurofeedback is that that too few people (outside of
neuroscientists and neurologists) grasp the
importance of rhythmicity and feedback loops in the
brain. Here is a simple model of the brain taught to
me by neurosurgeon Joe Bogen to help the
non-neuroscientist understand how the brain works:

The brain consists of inhibitory systems that inhibit
inhibitory systems which inhibit inhibitory systems.

If you grasp this, you grasp why neurofeedback is so
powerful in remediating cortical dysfunction and
subsequently psychopathology. Neurofeedback provides
an external feedback loop that can come under some
volitional control. This feedback loop impinges on
the extensive feedback loops inherent in the
thalamocortical circuitry and the therapist moderates
these feedback loops to increase or decrease
activation of neuromodulatory circuitry at various
topographic regions of the brain. (See David
McCormick's work for a clear and visual presentation
on neuronal feedback loops -
info.med.yale.edu/neurobio/mccormick/seminar/seminar.htm

Neurofeedback may require a re-evaluation of one's
belief system, especially those who memorized the
DSM-IV. But I doubt that the Nobel Prize has ever
been awarded to any scientist who did not re-evaluate
his or her belief system at one time during his or
her lifetime.

David Kaiser (Jan 1998 version) -DK
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