Epilepsy

The first major publication (in the middle 1960s) on neurofeedback was Barry Sterman’s work with 8-10 treatment-refractory cases of epilepsy who were in line awaiting split-brain surgery. Sterman trained them all using SMR (without using an assessment, since there were no databases at that time). Seizure activity decreased significantly in all–most were able to go completely off meds and stopped having seizures.

As with any EEG, you can see epileptiform activity if it happens during the recording, but often it doesn’t. Although some trainers chase after the “source” of the seizures using QEEG’s, I’m not aware of any approach that has had greater success than Sterman’s simple protocol. The Othmers adapted it a bit in the 90s, and I’ve used a combination of the two for 20 years with great results.