This newsletter is a revised version of my first column in NeuroConnections, the joint publication of the ISNR and of the AAPB Neurofeedback Division, which I am currently serving as President. In this forum, the newsletter reaches a larger audience.

It has been observed that Americans remain personally optimistic, by and large, while becoming increasingly pessimistic about what is happening in the society at large. This is certainly the case in our household, as we survey the decline in the relative standing of our country in nearly all measures of social, intellectual, and economic functioning, while at the same time we are highly optimistic about the positive societal potential of the neurofeedback training we have been doing. These divergent perceptions make for an unrelieved sense of urgency about the societal significance of our work. With our methods we are in a position to redress many of society’s critical ills, and to do so at very moderate costs by comparison to the results that can be achieved.

Read More »

On this Veterans Day we wanted to take a moment to thank all of the clinicians who have joined Homecoming for Veterans to support those in need by providing neurofeedback treatment for veterans with PTSD at no cost. Each day veterans are returning from deployments abroad and facing the challenges of life back home. We are so proud of the work that is being done by our network of clinicians, and want to encourage all of our colleagues who are practicing neurofeedback treatment to consider joining the Homecoming for Veterans team.

We all know this is a huge challenge. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs in June 2010, there were 171,423 deployed Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans diagnosed with PTSD, out of a total of 593,634 patients treated by the VA. But the toll goes beyond just the numbers. Every day we hear stories of vets who are returning home only to struggle with depression and alcohol and drug abuse. These health issues are leading to broken families, homelessness and in far too many cases, suicide.

Read More »

Today the web-based newspaper The Daily published a front-page article on Infra-Low Frequency Neurofeedback in application to PTSD. Along with the article there is also a six-minute video that illustrates the training procedure and basic approach. Reporter Katie Drummond did her homework on this topic over a number of months, finally coming out to our office from New York and showing up at our office with a video crew in order to try the training herself and to get acquainted with the principals.

Following this introduction you’ll find the first paragraph of the feature article and a link to read the full article and watch the video. The piece is best viewed on the iPad application of The Daily, where the whole feature is more integrated. (The Daily is available by subscription, but a two-week free trial is available for the iPad.)

Read More »

The occasion of Memorial Day 2011 is a good opportunity to reflect on what has been happening in the remediation of PTSD using our latest Infra-Low Frequency (ILF) neurofeedback training. The word breakthrough is over-used, but it does describe the progress that has occurred over the last several years. The most significant event over that time frame was the actual utilization of our methods on a large scale in realistic settings within the military. By now more than 350 service persons have experienced this training at Camp Pendleton, one of six military bases where this work is being conducted. In this fashion, we were able to move from a series of isolated clinical observations in our clinic to a more substantial evaluation in a real-world environment, with independent clinicians guiding the neurofeedback training on the basis of our standard introductory training course, plus the occasional consultation.

When neurofeedback is used on such a significant scale, even though it is in a clinical context, certain impressions take hold that rise to the level of accepted fact just as surely as if they had arisen out of a formal research program. For example, it was observed that service persons were more consistent in showing up for neurofeedback training than for any other mental health services on offer for PTSD. It is difficult to see such a finding coming out of formal research, where matters are typically more regimented and prescribed. Another advantage of the real-world setting is that a very broad range of symptom presentations is being encountered, as well as a distribution of symptom severity. This allows a comprehensive set of symptoms to be tracked through the training (on the order of 45 in this case), which would be quite atypical for a research design. An additional advantage was the opportunity to see some of the same persons both before and after deployment, so that impressions could be gained about the durability of the training effects in a combat environment. The clinical environment values the individual case, whereas in research such cases would be submerged in statistical analysis and the richness of detail would be lost.

Read More »

Bringing neurofeedback into a mental health practice means acquiring a working model by means of which all the clinical phenomenology can be reframed in a psychophysiological perspective. Clinical decision-making then emerges largely out of that framework. As the training proceeds, clinical observations are interpreted in terms of that framework and lead to fine-tuning of the clinical strategy. There are two feedback loops here. One involves the client and the feedback signal. The other involves the client and the clinician. The importance of the latter has increased over time as the techniques have strengthened in their impact. Within-session changes in physiological state have to be attended to promptly to steer the training in a propitious direction. This responsiveness, which is observed fairly typically, means that the burden of clinical decision-making has shifted from being a rather freighted decision at the outset to a continual, iterative process that is itself feedback-guided toward the desired objectives. This places the principal burden of competent guidance upon the clinician—more so perhaps than with any other approach.

One proceeds from the basic orientation that the brain must satisfy all of the criteria of a feedback control system. We think in terms of hierarchies here. Firstly, the CNS must assure its own unconditional stability. Allied with this concern is the ability to contain behavioral disinhibition. Second, it must manage set-points of activation of different functional domains. Thirdly, it must arrange for the smooth integration of these functional domains to meet the challenges of life. Clinical targeting then follows this same hierarchy. Promoting brain stability is the first objective. Training for better management of states of activation is the second. Functional integration to manage localized deficits is the third.

Read More »

Neurofeedback is a highly promising emerging therapy for the autism spectrum. At issue here is a tool for the direct training of brain function, one that has already shown itself highly effective in addressing a wide range of “mental health” concerns. As has been the case for other therapies, its application to the autism spectrum has been complicated by the inherent complexity of the condition we confront. In the following, we recapitulate the development of neurofeedback for the autism spectrum and give some guidance to both therapists and parents with regard to the choices open to them.

Our own work with the autism spectrum using neurofeedback goes back some twenty-five years. In those early days of the field, the principal application of neurofeedback was to Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but the very same procedures were clearly also helpful for a variety of other issues. So it came naturally to want to try these methods also with children on the autism spectrum. These early attempts were just as likely to make things worse as they were to make things better, so we quickly placed a virtual fence around autism and decided we did not know enough to venture there. Some years later, a few practitioners in our network reported some good results with newer techniques, so the door was once again opened to working with the autism spectrum.

Read More »