Monopolar (or referential) montages are channels in which one electrode (usually the active, but that’s not necessarily true) is placed over an active EEG site on the head. Bipolar (or sequential) montages are channels in which BOTH active and reference electrode are placed over active EEG sites. T3/A1 has one electrode over a head site and one over a relatively inert site (the earlobe), so it is monopolar. T3/T4 has both electrodes over head sites, so it is bipolar. A […]

Alpha peak frequency is the dominant frequency in the range. For example, if you looked at bars on the power spectrum in the alpha range, the bar that was tallest would be the peak frequency. This is another way of looking at level of activation. Alpha peak frequency should be around 10Hz (especially in the front) in most adults. Lower peak frequencies indicate EEG slowing with the problems related to that (language and attention difficulties, depression, etc.); higher peak frequencies […]

Peak Performance There is a valid point about “peak performance” training that says that ALL neurofeedback is just that.  Unless you happen upon a perfect brain, whatever that might look like, everyone, even high performers, have issues of anxiety or low energy or obsessiveness or lapses of attention of impulsive behavior or whatever.  If you start by looking at the client’s brain and determining what is KEEPING him from performing even better, then training that, you will often make your […]

Reversal I don’t necessarily have a single protocol for limbic calming, because I think the brain establishes various strategies to deal with limbic over-drive situations. If the drive is related to later stress issues, then I am more likely to find the most common pattern in adults, which I call Reversal. The parietal and/or occipital lobes show greater activation (higher beta levels and lower alpha) than the frontal areas. Instead of the back of the brain simply integrating sensory inputs […]

Pete’s first rule of NF is, “When you see something strange or unusual in the brain, first assume it is something you did or the client did before you assume it is the brain.” A corollary could be, “If you see something strange in the signal that you can’t fix, assume it is something the client is doing.” You might also recall one of the most basic of Pete’s Rules of Brain Training: when you find something that works, keep […]

Below are some concepts in understanding montages. For more information in understanding how to ready the montages in your Whole-Brain Training plan, please see our videos. Just to repeat one of the conventions we use, when a montage is listed, it should be listed as Active/Reference. If we follow that convention, then if someone writes C4/P4, it means that C4 is active and P4 is reference. A two-channel montage would be C4/A2/g/P4/A2. References There are three kinds of 2-channel (or […]

Synchrony Synchrony indicates that two waveforms are coherent (consistent relationship between their peaks and valleys) and in phase (peak and valleys happening at the same time in both waveforms). If that is true when you add the waves together, the peaks are added to the peaks, giving the largest possible positive number, and the valleys are added to the valleys, giving the largest possible negative number. Thus the sum of the two, when we look at the absolute values, removing […]

Rewards Rewards in neurofeedback are the alerts the brain receives to let it know that it has done something worth repeating. Rewards are set in the computer’s protocol and usually come in the form of tones, or a video playing, or points accumulating in a game. When I trained with Joel Lubar in the early 1990s, he used 30-40% rewards, set the threshold once in the first session and left it in the same place for up to 30 sessions. […]

SCP refers to Slow Cortical Potentials. The brain produces both AC signals (the kind we usually train using neurofeedback), which oscillate between positive and negative numerous times per minute. When you train a signal at 14 Hz, for example, it has 14 positive and 14 negative pulses each second, which we see on the screen as peaks and valleys above and below the baseline on the raw waveform. However, the brain also produces DC signals, which you might see when […]

Thresholds Here’s the way I look at the question of automatic versus manual thresholds: 1. Assuming one is talking about amplitude training only (i.e. not synchrony, variability or other options), generally a more healthy and mature brain produces lower amplitudes and lower variability. Even if you say you are training theta down and SMR up, you will most likely see BOTH go down, though theta will go down more, so the relationship between them changes. 2. Since the brain changes […]