The wurster, the better

Well, it’s been it’s been 6 or 7 weeks since I bought the neuroband. I was really hoping that this would nudge me to do more sessions. But I have just not had the time to do as many sessions as I had planned. I was hoping to do at least 5 per week and then cut back on the 2 sessions we pay for to one. With my teaching at night and melancholy mood, I have probably only done one additional session per week.

I need to get back to the plan. The last couple of times I’ve tried doing a session with my daughter, she has abruptly ended the session. Lately she has appeared less cooperative (at least with me). She has started to take off the battery that is clipped to her shoulder. At another time, she just got up and walked away. So, the doctor has suggested changing the duration of the session to 10 minutes for now. And he feels we need to do another QEEG.

I’ve been thinking about Alicia and progress. How do we know if there is any? I’m sort of a concrete person and would like to see data that can show this. I hope to work with someone to help him analyze the NFB data via an Excel spreadsheet.

These are some references concerning the world of biofeedback or neurofeedback.

(list last modified 8/8/2007 5:08 pm UTC)

• Pocket Neurobics Biofeedback Equipment
• Brain-trainer
• BioExplorer
• QuietMind Foundation

Having been using neurofeedback for only 8 months or so with our daughter, I was looking for some kind of basic description on how to get started with this. I found this answer to someone’s question on the Braintrainer listserv. It is by Peter Van Deusen, The Learning Curve, Inc. You can learn much more by going to his web site. Some of the terms below may not be familiar, but by asking questions, we find out. I hope this is useful to anyone visiting here as a starting point.

Someone asked:

My original goal was just to find a way of doing some basic SMR training at Cz. It is somewhat of a disappointment to me to realise that I know have to learn a whole lot of stuff about designing screens in Bioexplorer to be able to do that.

Where should I go for really basic advice for someone who just wants to get started with some really basic training?

Peter replied:
You need 3 things to do neurofeedback–and ideally would have 2 more.

1. You need some kind of acquisition device (electrodes) to pick up the signals from your head.
2. You need an amplifier to clean and magnify those signals and send them to the computer (your Pendant).
3. You need software (BioExplorer) to allow you to choose what frequencies to train, with what targets and what kind of feedback.
4. Ideally you would also have some kind of evaluation that would tell you what was going on in your brain, so the things you train have a greater likelihood of resulting in the effects you wish to achieve.
5. And ideally you would have some kind of mentor or support person who could help you learn the basic skills of finding sites, placing electrodes for a clean signal, recognizing and minimizing artifact and running the software without corrupting the training.

The EEG Spectrum operation where you went first had all of those things, though it is likely that you mainly saw the software–including the space race game. And it is unlikely they did much of an assessment on you, so they probably used a couple generic protocols. The so-called “clean windshield effect” (did you read about that in Symphony in the Brain or did they ask you about it?) is a very common response that almost everyone has early in training. It’s a nice hook to keep people coming back, but unless you are training the right things in the right place, it probably won’t last.

If you have completed the Subjective Evaluation, you should be able to process the data by clicking the “Complete” button at the bottom of the page. If it doesn’t work, send to to me back-channel as an attachment, and I’ll process it for you and send it back. If you are using the version 3r, it will give you an idea which areas on the head are most likely involved in the things you most want/need to change, and it will help you define some training objectives. The next step, if possible, would be to find someone who could help you run a TLC Assessment, which will give you a picture of your brain in quite a bit of detail and help focus on what patterns are most important to train to achieve your objectives.

With the hardware/software and a training plan and some sense of how to place the electrodes, you should begin to train and get an effect. The Space Race game wasn’t a particular training–just a feedback interface. BioExplorer contains a PacMan interface that you can also set for any particular type of training. Or you can do as the Spectrum folks did and purchase an extra cost game (like Space Race). You can get NeuroPuzzles or Inner Tube or others (you can find these on the www.brain-trainer website in the software section, just as you can get BioExplorer there at a discount if you haven’t already purchased it).

Back in November, 2006, at the recommendation of our daughter’s psychiatrist, we made an appointment with a doctor who could do an assessment of her brain activity. This had never been done before and he wanted to see what the brain patterns looked like. I assume that after prescribing medications for my daughter for a couple of years and only having observed her for her responses to the drugs, he wanted to see what was actually happening inside her head. So, we made an appointment to see Dr. Marvin Berman in Lafayette Hill, PA.

The initial assessment showed that her delta waves were very high, much higher than normal. The delta waves are the sleep waves and predominate during our sleeping. Our daughter’s were too high especially while she was awake. So, the immediate goal was to lower these waves and increase the alpha waves.