In the 1990s, Tom Budzynski studied effects of aging on the brain. He showed that one of the clearest brain findings related to cognitive issues was slowing of the peak alpha frequency in the rear of the head. He also demonstrated that training to increase the peak–what he called brain-brightening–had positive effects on semantic memory–the ability to recall that word you want, which is one of the most common complaints in older adults. Another pattern that has been shown is […]

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 […]

Brain Exercises Do brain exercises work? I’ve used several of them with clients and myself, and the ones I used pretty much did the same thing. Asking whether they work is like asking whether doing aerobic exercise will improve fitness. The answer is “yes, if you do it consistently over a period of time.” That’s always the problem. Clients get started and do the exercises several times, but then it becomes another chore that starts getting put off or missed […]

Tips for Making Sessions Run Better Once you understand the basics of neurofeedback, including how to get good connections, open a design, and run a session, you are likely to have more nuanced questions. This section is intended to help you get some of the neurofeedback training answers you need to become a seasoned brain trainer.  

If you watch the oscilloscope, you’ll get comfortable reading what EEG activity looks like: it is not generally repetitive or overly consistent. When all the wave forms are roughly the same height, instead of taller and shorter, that’s probably not brain. If the width of the waves are very consistent rather than shifting to wider (slower) and narrower (faster) patterns, again, that’s probably something mechanical rather than organic. Sudden spikes, especially when they are repetitive, probably also indicate a problem. […]

Whether the sensitivity is a cause or result of limited ability to control the interface between the internal and external worlds, I have no idea. Most likely, in a complex-adaptive brain, it plays both parts in a feedback loop: the high sensitivity demands too much of the filtering system, causing it to fail, and the failure of filtering results in too much traffic which increases excitation. Early on I recognized the relationship between allergies/asthma and hyper-immune responses. Environmental phenomena that […]

Physical Reactions For very stressed people, tingling in hands and feet as a reaction to neurofeedback can be a result of shifting into parasympathetic mode, so the blood gets back out to the extremities. Whole body tingling might just be a person actually being in touch enough with his sensory inputs to actually be aware of himself as a sensing being. Wild guess. Reaction vs Rebound The rebound effect is an autonomic phenomenon. When a person has high levels of […]

Training Tips for Children and Adolescents Doing neurofeedback with people under age 18 can be very different from brain-training adults. The following information may make your work go more smoothly. Assessments and Young Children The first step in neurofeedback is usually a Trainers’ QEEG. However, I generally wouldn’t even try to do an assessment on someone as young as five years old. Five or six or younger are ages whose brains are VERY immature and disorganized–even the relatively functional ones–so […]

All About HEG Select from topics below to skip to an area on interest. What HEG is and How it Works Ease of Use When to Use HEG Duration of Training Locations and Length of Training Locating of Training Site Sites to Train Rotating One Site a Day Exercise Analogy Perfusion Fast-Wave Frequencies and HEG Responses to Training Calibrating Device at Beginning of Session Training Guidelines Timing of Sessions Percent Increase in Ratio Attention Index Baseline HEG and Coherence Safety […]

EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) EMDR, when it works, is faster than neurofeedback, but it is very specific to an individual traumatic memory, so you have to do it a bunch of times if the client has more than one or two traumatic memories–and some clients are very disturbed by the process of bringing the traumatic experience back into memory, preferring not to do it. Neurofeedback doesn’t seem to work with individual memories. It is more oriented toward changing […]