A study published in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience in 2014 looked at the results of an extremely short regimen of neurofeedback (only eight sessions) for 40 individuals with a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder. They found that, despite the small number of sessions, measurements of working memory and processing speed increased, suggesting that neurofeedback may be helpful with depression. You may read the full study at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00296/full
Author Archives: Tamera
Neurofeedback for Fetal Alcohol Problems
A single-person case study published in the Journal of Neurotherapy in 2012 reported a significant improvement in the quality of life for a thirteen-year-old boy with a diagnosis of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. His mother reported that the boy’s quality of life had improved after 20 sessions of training, though she was careful to clarify that her son still had significant challenges and was not cured. A link to a PDF of the report is available at: http://www.isnr-jnt.org/article/view/16534
Observing Neurons at Work
Biomedical engineers from George Washington University, Northwestern University, and the University of Arizona have developed a method of observing individual neurons working by inserting a dye and then shining light on the dye, according to a study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a summary published in Science Daily. The tiny device uses the light to observe biochemical processes of neurons at work. It runs on the brain’s electromagnetism and hopefully will help researchers who are searching for ways to help stop neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
Read more about this remarkable breakthrough at Science Daily.
Choosing a Neurofeedback Practitioner
I frequently receive requests for help finding someone who offers neurofeedback training outside the Northern Virginia area where I work. Thanks to a fairly robust network, I’m often able to help. However, for those times when I don’t know someone in their area, I offer a few tips, and I thought these tips might be worth sharing:
- Choose someone who specializes in neurofeedback. Over the past five years, neurofeedback has become enormously popular among mental health providers. Psychologists, social workers, and counselors are all jumping on the brain-training bandwagon, which is terrific, up to a point. Many of these individuals attend a one-week workshop and dive right in, offering neurofeedback services with nothing but a tiny amount of training and a lot of enthusiasm. Their mistake is thinking their license to offer psychotherapy confers expertise in neurofeedback; it does not. When you are looking for a provider, make sure this person is actually doing neurofeedback a significant percentage of their workweek. It would never be my preference to go to someone who is dabbling a few hours a week in the latest fad.
- Choose someplace that offers consistent trainers. Although I advocate working with a neurofeedback specialist, it’s possible to take that specialization a bit too far. Across the country, mental health providers are establishing clinics with large numbers of providers under their supervision. In theory, there is nothing wrong with this, and of course there are many advantages to having colleagues and experts together. However, to increase profits, some clinics hire less-skilled technicians to run training sessions, and these clinicians often rotate in and out. If you choose to go to a clinic for your training, make sure that you select one which promises that, to the extent possible, the same person will always be supervising your training. You want someone who knows you or your child, and you want someone who has seen something more than a few notes in a file regarding response to training protocols. Consistency matters.
- Choose a practice in which someone stays in the room with you. Some places hook up their trainees and leave the room. This means that no one is observing what is happening during a session. Most of the time, sessions are uneventful (and honestly can occasionally be boring for the person monitoring training), but sometimes, electrodes come loose or settings need to be adapted midstream or one of several other things may go awry. When things go wrong and no one is there to respond, that entire session has been wasted and may even result in a negative response to the training.
You might be surprised to find that I don’t especially worry about whether someone is new to the field. If the above conditions are met, then you likely have a provider who is diligent and working with a more experienced practitioner—someone who is supervising and providing the extensive guidance needed to develop true expertise.
As always, feel free to reach out if you need help locating a practitioner outside Northern Virginia. If I can’t find someone directly, I probably have a colleague who can.
Sleep Better with Vitamin D
Dr. Mercola has written an interesting article detailing the connections among vitamin D deficiency, B vitamin deficiency, gut health, and sleep cycles. He summarizes research that dates back to the 1980s but has not been broadly publicized. I think it’s a level of complexity and detail that’s easy to read, but a bit too much to try to summarize on one paragraph, so if you or someone you know struggles with sleep, I suggest reading what he has to say here.
Putting Symptoms and Wellness in Context
Usually, I share scientific articles in this blog, but today, I want to share a blog post from someone whose work I greatly admire. David Bedrick is an agent of change with great compassion. His work in process-oriented psychology, as I have heard from one of his clients, goes deep and finds the multiple sources of an individual’s suffering. I particularly admire his work with shame and trauma.
In this Psychology Today article from a few years ago, he writes about the ways in which no individual’s symptoms are exclusively the result of individual choices. Take a look here and you’ll see what I mean.
Most of my clients who need psychotherapy have usually already found a therapist before they find me. For those who have not and are looking for depth work, David or his partner Lisa may be a good fit. Find out more at davidbedrick.com.
(In this era of paid promotions, I feel compelled to note that this is not a paid endorsement and that David had no idea that I was inspired by seeing his article to share.)
Exercise for Brain Health
It’s a new year, and many people are re-committing to lifestyle changes that include exercise. Here’s yet another reason to get your body moving and create a new lifestyle: a study from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases that was published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings and summarized in Neuroscience News shows that increases in peak oxygen intake–a result of cardiovascular exercise–is strongly associated with increases in gray matter volume. A decline in gray matter volume in the brain is associated with age-related cognitive decline, and researchers believe that this adds more evidence to the growing indicators which point to exercise maintaining brain health and cognitive abilities.
You can read more about this in Neuroscience News at https://neurosciencenews.com/exercise-gray-matter-15374/. And, you can read the Mayo Clinic article about the study here.
Detecting Brainwaves
People often ask how it is that neurofeedback can detect brainwaves in order to train them. After all, the electricity in the brain is a faint signal and must make it through the skull to be located and measured.
Scientists have found several ways to measure. The oldest and most common are electrodes, as seen in this photo. They are attached with a hypoallergenic paste that helps conduct the electrical signal. My preference is the type with blue, disposable tips, but I’ve shown in the image what are called cup electrodes for comparison, and there are also flat electrodes about the same size as the cup electrodes. I use electrodes almost all the time in my office, because the conductive paste can be cleaned up with soap and water or, as I use, rubbing alcohol. The advantage of using electrodes is that after doing brain training, a person can leave the office and go on to another activity with no visible signs of having done brain training. This, I believe is a huge advantage for people trying to fit neurofeedback into a busy day.
People often use caps for measurement, as well. One of my caps is shown in this second image. It fits snugly on the head, and the wires detect signal through a gel that is inserted into the white connectors. There also are caps that connect snugly under the chin and use saline for electrical conduction (not shown). The advantage of caps is that they are fast to use when doing a brain map and measuring electrical activity at 20 sites on the head. The disadvantage is that the gel does not wash out, so one usually prefers to go home and shampoo. Although some, especially home trainers, prefer the cap because it does not require knowing how to locate training sites on the scalp, it tends to be messier and less comfortable. In addition, some children find the cap intimidating. I have a cap on hand for those who prefer it.
Amygdala Changes Size in Veterans with PTSD
The amygdala is a structure in the brain whose functions include attaching emotion to memory, memory consolidation, processing emotion, and regulating aggression. Shifts in its functioning are known to be associated with fear, stress, and trauma. In a study published this month in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, researchers found that the veterans with a diagnosis of PTSD–post-traumatic stress disorder had parts of the amygdala that were smaller and parts that had grown larger.
The study did not address the meaning of these volume shifts in the various nuclei but does point to significant brain changes as a result of trauma exposure. It is similar to a series of other studies which also point to structural and connectivity changes.
A summary of the most recent study may be found here.
Researchers Say Avoid Sugar to Avoid the Blues Over the Holidays
Research out of the University of Kansas that was published in Medical Hypotheses and summarized in Neuroscience News indicates that consumption of excess sugar leads to an inflammatory response in the body and neurobiological responses that can result to depressive symptoms. Lack of exposure to sunlight during winter months triggers the body to crave sweets, especially in the 5-10 percent of the population who are susceptible to seasonal depression. Those sweets can have a temporary lifting effect, but can also trigger symptoms.
The study authors suggest that although there is no one-size-fits-all quantity, it may be best to limit added, processed sugars to 25g per day.
For more information, the Neuroscience News article may be read here, and the study itself may be accessed here.
Screen Time and Preschoolers
The website GreenMedInfo recently published a fascinating article about MRIs taken of preschoolers with various amounts of screen usage. They write that Cincinnati Children’s Hospital researchers found among those who had more screen time significant, negative changes in white matter that correlate with language and literacy regions. The article draws in other research which also support the idea that eliminating or severely restricting the amount of screen time that young children receive is important for preserving brain health and function years down the line.
The article is short, clearly written, and can be accessed here: https://www.greenmedinfo.health/blog/too-much-screen-time-harms-brain-development1?utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter%3A%20Too%20Much%20Screen%20Time%20Harms%20Brain%20Development%20%28NrEdYy%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=5G%20Summit%20Attendees&_ke=eyJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJ0c2ltaW5vd0Bob3RtYWlsLmNvbSIsICJrbF9jb21wYW55X2lkIjogIksydlhBeSJ9
Enjoy!
No Such Thing as a Normal Brain
My philosophy of neurofeedback embraces the notion that there is no such thing as a normal brain. There are optimally functioning brains and poorly functioning brains, but normal/abnormal is hard to nail down. Whose brain is normal–the electrical engineer or the novelist? The accountant or the actor? Brains with very different patterns can still be functioning well.
This article in the AMA Journal of Ethics captures the point. I think the concept of neurodiversity can go too far–it’s hard for me not understand how some of my non-verbal, marginally functional clients with autism can be seen as simply variant and not, instead, harmed by something in their environment, for example. In general, though, it’s an important point that makes sense to so many of us who don’t want to be seen as broken.
Read Thomas Armstrong’s fine article on the subject here.
January Workshop!
Are you learning from Brain Trainer video training but also wishing for in-person training and hands-on instruction and experience? Here is your chance!
Please join Master Trainers Erica Lyme and Tamera Siminow for a one-day workshop in Oakton, Virginia on Sunday, January 12th from 9 am to 5 pm.
In our small-group environment of no more than seven students, you will:
- Conduct a brain map on a fellow classmate and have one performed on you.
- Learn at an introductory level how to interpret and apply the results of your mapping.
- Learn how to locate sites on the brain and use electrodes in lieu of a cap.
- Have ample time to ask questions and get started.
Prerequisites: you must already have your equipment and have watched Brain Trainer University. This workshop is open to both professional and lay trainers.
Cost: $295
For more details or to enroll, please contact me at either Tamera@BrainShapeLLC.com or 703.728.6087.
The workshop location is a 30-minute drive from both Dulles and Reagan National Airports. Multiple hotels are located within 10-15 minutes.
NOTE: An extra, custom half-day is available on Monday for those who wish additional training time. Email us for more details. And, if you prefer one-on-one training, that is available other times. Just ask one of us!
ADHD and Neurofeedback
ADDitude published an opinion piece about the efficacy of neurofeedback that is worth reading (click here).
One thing that the article does not point out is that studying neurofeedback and ADHD is complicated by the fact that there is no single electrical signature in the brain that can be used to diagnose ADHD. Some with focus and attention problems have a slow left pre-frontal cortex of the sort that stimulant medication can help, and some with focus and attention problems do not have an especially slow pre-frontal cortex. This lack of correspondence between electrical brainwave patterns and specific diagnoses is one reason why brain training with the expectation of treating or curing a mental health diagnosis often undermines the reputation of neurofeedback. It also complicates the process of creating proper methodologies for studying neurofeedback.
For more information and a sampling of peer-reviewed literature on neurofeedback, check out the resources tab of this website at https://brainshapeva.com/resources.
See a Brain at Work!
Yale University researchers combined two imaging techniques to show a mouse brain at work in real time. The video is short, at just 18 seconds, but it is pretty amazing to get a peek at something we don’t get to see. It is a product of the National Institutes of Health BRAIN Initiative, and you can read about the study here. A summary of the work is available at Fast Company.