The Dysponesis Hypothesis
We are always casting about for better ways to frame the work that we do in order to make it comprehensible to other professionals and lay persons. Sometime it helps to dip into past history to see how others wrestled with the same issue. One notion that has threaded its way through is that of simple inefficiency in brain regulatory function, which naturally leads to the suggestion that our training improves regulatory effectiveness through promoting higher efficiency in the regulatory mechanisms. It’s a simple concept with a certain amount of face validity, and also offers the virtue of vagueness where we are still uncertain about the details. Another slightly different theme is that the brain sometimes works against itself, that its efforts to right the ship are sometimes counter-productive.

The term dysponesis encompasses a variety of dysfunctions in which the CNS operates counter to the desired end-result. In considering the possible utility of this term in modern parlance, I am going back to an article written by George Whatmore and Daniel Kohli back in 1968 (Behavioral Science, 13(2), 102-124, (1968)), and reprinted as a book chapter in the text Mind/Body Integration (Erik Peper, Sonia Ancoli, and Michelle Quinn, editors), which was first published in 1979. The authors were two physicians in private practice.

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We are challenged at all levels by complexity. In response, we do our best as scientists and engineers to model system behavior. No matter how far we are along in this process, however, we encounter events which make it clear that the model of behavior does not also model misbehavior. Misbehavior acts differently, and we don’t get to an understanding of that just by refining our existing models. Different models are needed.
 

The Flash Crash
In the world of finance, we have become collectively bedazzled by “efficient market theory,” the idea that market prices immediately reflect the best knowledge that exists about a particular investment. In an ideally functioning market, sellers and buyers are always nearly matched, and volatility is increasingly squeezed out of the system. Volatility is the best measure of attendant risk, hence a robust market is the best assurance we may have that our investment risk is bounded and finite—i.e., quantifiable and of manageable scope.

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In connection with the current performance of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung here in Los Angeles, a panel discussion was organized at the REDCAT theatre on mythology and the human brain with Antonio Damasio (neuroscientist), Peter Sellars (theater, opera, and movie director, and impresario), and Bill Viola (videographer). (REDCAT stands for Roy and Edna Disney/CAL Arts Theater.)
 

The Origins of Myth
Damasio started the afternoon off by delving into the presumptive beginnings of myth among our early ancestors. He drew a distinction between us and our near animal relatives, the chimpanzees, with respect to memory. We have a deeper and more complex autobiographical memory, which is foundational to the emergence of myth. He then also asserted that the emergence of imagery in our species preceded the emergence of language.

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The first convincing evidence for EEG feedback efficacy in the management of pathophysiology was with regard to generalized seizures. The early work by Sterman, Lubar, as well as the subsequent follow-up by others, therefore remains a crucial point of reference for the various feedback techniques that have built upon the early protocol of SMR reinforcement combined the theta-band and high-beta band inhibition. Remarkably, the essential features of the early approach have been retained in the various evolutionary pathways that have emanated from the early work. This essential similarity has perhaps obscured other aspects of the training approach that have changed substantially over time, the significance of which may not have been fully appreciated except in reflection. In this newsletter we consider some of these changes and their implications generally, as well as for seizure management in particular.

The common thread in most modern neurofeedback approaches is the combination of a reinforcement strategy on one EEG frequency or another and an inhibit strategy based on detection of excursions into dysregulation. Some issues relating to the inhibit side have been relegated entirely to the software, thus removing them from ready visibility. Artifact detection and the division of labor between that and the conventional inhibits is a case in point. Specific targeting strategies typically remain to the discretion of the practitioner, as for example with respect to thresholding, placement, and frequency band selection. The general thrust over time has been to broaden the “field of view” of this EEG-based disregulation detector, mainly with respect to the frequencies being targeted, but sometimes also in terms of placement. Multi-channel instruments allow independent choice of placement for the reward and the inhibit strategies. Fortuitously, the various inhibit strategies being actively used—-though differing significantly from each other—-have not been wrapped up in much controversy.

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by Matthew Fleischman, PhD
“We’re not in Kansas anymore!” I thought to myself after hearing Dr. Eugene Peniston speak about brainwave therapy for alcoholism at The Menninger Foundation in Topeka in 1988. It was truly an over-the-rainbow idea that we could treat profound emotional and behavioral problems just by training individuals to modify their brainwaves. And in the twenty plus years since, I have remained committed to bringing this amazing treatment from Oz to the real world.
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By any measure, positive client feedback, steady referrals and extensive records indicating client reported improvement suggest it has been a wonderful journey. I have learned some fantastic things and made the friendship of some outstanding colleagues. I’ve also had the pleasure of playing with some amazing toys: brain maps, symptom and QEEG-based protocols, LENS, HEG, SmartBrain Games, pirHEG and the Othmers’ ILF model.

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To someone who has been educated in the sciences it is somewhat jarring to see so many people blithely dismiss the alarming evidence in favor of global warming. And yet when it comes to neurofeedback, we are quite comfortable flying in the face of mainstream thinking and simply dismissing the mainstream position (of skepticism with respect to neurofeedback) as essentially meaningless. In one case, we regard scientific consensus as highly significant; in the other, we hold it in utter contempt. How can one justify both positions simultaneously?

The answer lies in the nature of the evidence for both propositions. What makes the case in favor of global warming so persuasive is that it is supported by so many independent lines of evidence, all of which collectively support a model that in turn is also well-supported, namely the key influence of atmospheric CO₂ concentrations on global temperatures. Much of this evidence came to exist in the course of research that was unrelated to the issue of global warming. Add to the known influence of CO₂ that of many other gaseous effluents, which can be tens to thousands of times worse in terms of their greenhouse effect, and we have ourselves a rather dangerous stew.

For evidence, one needs to look at those changes that average over short-term fluctuations, and one needs to look at regions where the effects are expected to be largest and to show up first: the arctic. Already we know that arctic summer sea ice is running at less than half of what it was half a century ago. Ominous signs of the decay of ice sheets are also seen in the Antarctic. Supporting evidence is then furnished by such findings as arctic flowers blooming earlier, butterflies moving their territories northward in England, and birds advancing the calendar on their nesting behavior. Altered composition of phytoplankton in arctic waters indicates that chemical changes have reached the level of biological significance.

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