Neurofeedback

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Neurofeedback

• Steele Taylor
• www.uvm.edu/jstaylor/UVM/Neurofeedback.ppt
• jstaylor_at_uvm.edu

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Part 1

• What is Neurofeedback?
• Overview of the Nervous System
• What are Brain Rhythms and What Functions do they
  Serve?
• Tour the Major Bandwidths of the Nervous System

Part 2

• Rhythms of the Hippocampus
• Beta Training for ADHD and Epilepsy
• Alpha /Theta Training for Anxiety and PTSD
• Non Clinical Applications of Neurofeedback
• The future of feedback-based therapy

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• Feedback therapy demonstrates and exploits our
  ability to exert and/or regain volitional control
  over aspects of physiology previously held to be
  inaccessible to consciousness

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Biofeeback and Mind-Body Axes

• Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuro-Muscular
• Neurogenic Analgesia/Hyperalgesia
• Neuro-Endocrine
• Neuro-Immunological
• Will future feedback-based therapies be able to
• target the neuro-immunological axes?

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Take Home Points

• Neurofeedback is biofeedback for the Central
  Nervous System
• Targets firing patterns (brain rhythms) and
  regional blood flow
• Brain rhythms correspond to certain behavioral
  and cognitive states
• Cortical brain rhythms are detectable
  non-invasively (EEG)
• As the EEG inclines towards a desired frequency,
  a rewarding stimulus is applied
• The stimulus is auditory and/or visual
• Barry Stermans Story

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Why Neurofeedback?

• Neurofeedback and Pharmacotherapeutics
• Accurate and non-invasive monitoring
• Diagnosis and progress tracking
• Eliminate adverse effects and toxicities
• Sustained therapeutic benefit because the healing
  is self generated and penetrates core
  dysfunctions
• Neurofeedback and Psychotherapy
• The results are quantifiable
• Specific targeting of correlated neurological
  deficits
• Uncover unresolved issues for subsequent
  processing during a neurofeedback session

Why Not Neurofeedback?
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Neurofeedback Equipment

• Three essential components
• Input
• Electrodes EEG / SEMG
• Infrared Regional Cerebral Blood Flow
• Functional MRI Real Time fMRI
• Processing Unit
• Filter raw data and amplify
• Set to desired bandwidths
• May be general or very specific
• Percentage goals for simultaneously occurring
  frequencies
• Inhibit Threshold is equivalent to a limbo bar
• Reward Threshold is equivalent to a hurdle
• Output The reward must occur at the appropriate
  time!
• Auditory Stimuli
• Visual Stimuli

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http//dreamweaverhouse.org/images/brain_man.gif
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What Is Required of Neuronal Information
Processing?

• Recognize Patterns and Synthesize (Bind) Inputs
  Across Multiple Sensory Modalities
• Anticipate Future Events on Multiple Time Scales
• Position Awareness in Context of Past and Future
• Generate, Refine, and Execute Motor Programs
• Store and Retrieve Memories
• Do all of this efficiently!
• (space and metabolic restrictions)

How Can Oscillations Make These Possible?
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Nervous System Overview
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Blue Yin Calm Inhibition Red Yang
Arouse Excitation
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Classic Model of Information Flow
Input (afferent) Somatic Sensory Special
Sensory Visceral Sensory
Processing (interneurons) Triune Processing
Centers 1. Cerebrum (cortex) 2. Limbic System 3.
Spinal Cord and Brainstem
Output (efferent) Somatic Motor Visceral
Motor Glandular Secretions
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Modifications to the Classic Model

• The brain generates its own default organized
  activity that it inevitably reverts towards
• Meaning that it is not bound to environmental
  stimuli
• The brain emulates reality versus simply
  translating reality
• Sensation Requires Movement
• No perception without action

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Functional Localizations in the CNS
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coupling
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The Thalamus

• Gateway to the cortex
• Filter of Sensory Data
• Arousal Regulator
• Cortical Pacemaker?
• Equidistance from cortical structures would
  overcome lag times in communication

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The Hippocampus

• Librarian of the Brain!
• Navigation of external space and internal
  memory space
• Place Cells
• Episodic/Declarative
• Storage
• Retrieval
• Hippocampal Theta
• Lays ground for transient cell-assemblies
• Lays ground for long-term-potentiation

http//www.brainconnection.com/med/medart/l/hippoc
ampus.jpg
Neurons that fire together, wire together.
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Oscillations Are Embedded in Our Inner and Outer
Environments

• Day / Night
• Lunar Cycles
• Seasonal Cycles
• Predator - Prey
• Yearly Cycles
• Samsara!

• Heart Rate
• Respiratory Cycles
• Brain Rhythms
• Rhythmic Movement
• Voice Generation
• Daily Mood and Attention Flux
• Sleep / Wake
• Cellular Secretions

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Oscillation

• Oscillations are back and forth rhythmic
  variations across an equilibrium point
• 1. Harmonic Oscillators

• 2. Relaxation Oscillators
• Charge
• Discharge
• Refraction

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http//www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/workbook67/yin-y
ang_13.png
Blue Yin Calm Inhibition Red Yang
Arouse Excitation
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conduction-system.jpg
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Oscillations Help Satisfy the Requirements of the
Nervous System

• Synchronize distant regions through pacemaking
• Conserve energy because less energy expenditure
  required to charge downstream targets with yang
• Conserve space by allowing neurons to participate
  in multiple circuits
• Based on activity of channels
• Based on synchrony with other neurons
• Code and retrieve information in spatio-temporal
  sequences and auto-associations
• Glue or bind multiple processing regions to form
  gestalt perceptions
• Coupling gamma to hippocampal theta

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Paths of Least Resistance
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• Neuronal ensemble activities shuttle back and
  forth between the interference prone complexity
  and robust predictable oscillatory synchrony
• this switching behavior is the most efficient
  way for the brain to detect changes in the body
  and the surrounding physical world, while
  preserving its autonomous internal organization.
• -Gyorgy Buzsaki Rhythms of the Brain

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Slow Waves Robust Predictable Oscillatory
Synchrony

• Slow wave activity is the default mode of the
  brain, and enables a noise-free-circuit
• This allows experiences to be replayed,
  consolidated, and integrated with pre-existing
  internal models
• Synaptic connections are strengthened and
  remodeled
• During slow wave activity, the brain temporarily
  disables the process of being continually tossed
  about by external stimuli

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Slow Waves Robust Predictable Oscillatory
Synchrony

• Delta 1-3 Hz
• Deep Sleep, Repair, Problem Solving
• (wake up with the answer!)
• Reduced responsiveness to sensory perturbations
• Predominates during infancy as connectivity is
  still weak

• Theta 4-7 Hz
• Sleep-wake transitions
• Hypnagogic hallucinations
• Hypnapompic hallucinations
• Creativity, Insight,
• Uncritical acceptance, self-correcting thoughts
• Altered States,
• Super-learning in young children
• Slow wave disorders foggy thinking, epilepsy,
  ADHD, coma

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Alpha and SMR Bridging Internal Operations with
External Stimuli

• Alpha 8-12 Hz
• Calm Alertness, Meditation, Body Awareness,
  Daydreaming
• Reduced during eye movements
• More dominant posteriorly, however, years of
  meditation promotes spread to the pre-frontal
  cortexneurofeedback can hasten this process
• Coherence, reflection, attunement, integrative
  thinking
• Bottom-Up Processing
• Resolution of cognitive dissonance
• Sensory Motor Rhythm (SMR) or Mu
• 10-15 Hz within sensory-motor strip
• Physically Relaxed, Poised for Action, Calm
  Vigilance

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Faster Waves Interference Prone Complexity

• Beta 13-20 Hz
• Focused Thought, Sustained Attention, Industrious
  Behavior
• Characteristics of motor cortices actively
  engaged in directing movement
• Brain is desynchronized due to attending to
  variety of tasks
• High Beta 21-30 Hz
• Hyperalertness, Anxietyespecially if right beta
  exceeds left beta

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Faster Waves Interference Prone Complexity

• Gamma
• 30-80Hz
• Tend to be transient bursts of cognitive activity
• Sustained long enough for a subjective experience
• Equivalent to the AHA moment
• Perfect frequency to enable long-term
  potentiation
• Perfect frequency for construction and recall of
  cell assemblies binding
• Often deficient in learning disorders and mental
  retardation

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How to Access These States

• Delta Get some nice sleep,
• Theta Sustain the period before falling asleep
  (Edison style!), imagine passively flowing
  through a warm viscous medium
• Alpha Pay attention to your breath, continually
  scan your body
• SMR Play a sport such as baseball, tennis
• Low Beta Play penguin pursuit and color match on
  lumosity.com, read a book attentively (w/
  speed-read eye-movements), juggle
• High Beta Hike in the darknote your response to
  sudden unknown sounds! Panic, obsess.
• Gamma Do puzzles, play moneycomb, memory matrix
  on lumosity.com

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Alpha / Theta Training

• PTSD, Anxiety, Depression, Rage, Addiction, BDD
  and Anorexia?
• Trauma and long-standing anxiety can lead to
  limbic locking with accompanying reductions in
  pre-frontal lobe processing
• Goal is to unlock the dominant limbic circuits
  to restore normal information flow and processing
  between limbic cortex
• Enables resolution of long standing trauma
• Described as witnessing the events versus
  experiencing them vividly and emotionally
• Therapeutic benefit rests in the self-corrective
  intuitive thinking that emerges, however often
  vivid imagery also accompanies this state

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Alpha / Theta Training

• Non-Clinical Applications
• Creativity and Inventiveness
• Insight
• Experiential Learning
• Performance
• Shamans

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Training Beta

• 2. Beta Training ADHD
• Biochemical Etiology
• Reduced dopaminergic and noradrenergic
  innervation of cognitive, attentive and reward
  centers
• Stimulus seeking behavior is sought out
• Benefits of medication are typically medication
  dependant, and may not generate actually
  physiological alterations
• Possible underlying deficiencies in cholinergic
  signaling
• Electroencephalic Correlates
• Inappropriate cortical slow wave (theta alpha)
  dominance during cognitive activities
• Poor SMR
• Neurofeedback Protocol
• Reward beta, particularly left hemispheric and SMR

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Training Beta

• 2. Epilepsy
• Invasion of slow (3Hz) and strongly synchronous
  activity throughout the cortex
• Can be partial (absence), or widespread
• Strengthen cortical low beta
• Strengthen SMR
• Net effect is to enhance the seizure threshold
• Barry Sterman did this with cats!

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Training Beta

• 2. Performance
• Athletes
• Musicians
• Speakers/Politicians
• Medical Professionals

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The Future of Feedback Medicine

• Real-Time Functional MRI (fMRI)
• Christopher DeCharms project
• Participant can observe functional MRI in real
  time to alter their neurological activity
• Based on known structure-function relationships
  in the brain
• Immediate applications are for chronic pain
  management, but the possibilities are endless
• Useful for assessing vegetative status
• Versus Neurofeedback Poor temporal resolution,
  good spatial resolution

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The Future of Feedback Medicine

• 2. VTI of Neurophysiological Excellence
• Real-time monitoring of biochemical markers and
  rewarding of favorable shifts as patient engages
  in a virtual reality game

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Further Reading

• Demos, John. Getting Started With Neurofeedback.
  2005
• Robbins, Jim. A Symphony in the Brain. 2000
• Buzsaki, Gyorgy. Rhythms of the Brain. 2006
• Llinas, Rudolfo. I of the Vortex From Neurons to
  Self. 2002
• Ramachandran, V.S. A Brief Tour of Human
  Consciousness. 2004
• Schwartz MS and Andrasik F (editors).
  Biofeedback A Practitioners Guide. 2003
• Castaneda, Carlos. The Art of Dreaming.

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Websites

• www.neurocybernetics.com
• www.heartmath.com
• www.omneuron.com
• www.lumosity.com
• http//www.ted.com/index.php/talks/christopher_dec
  harms_scans_the_brain_in_real_time.html

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Neurofeedback

• Steele Taylor
• www.uvm.edu/jstaylor/UVM/Neurofeedback.ppt
• jstaylor_at_uvm.edu