Monthly summary of general news, case histories,
and introductory articles about neurofeedback
for the interested layperson
Vol. 9 No. 2 - February 2006
Past issues are available at start.eegspectrum.com/News/
Copyright (C) 2001 by EEG Spectrum International. All rights reserved.
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All links at news.yahoo.com/fc/Science/Brain_Research
Can lateralized neurofeedback -- training of one hemisphere only -- preferentially impact performance of the trained hemisphere? Pulvermuller et al (2000) previously showed how training slow cortical potentials over the left hemisphere can improve language performance in this hemisphere. This study explored whether learned modulation of neuroregulatory cortical activity (SMR, theta bands) likewise produces hemispheric effects. Twenty children, half boys and half girls, underwent 20 half-hour sessions across a month at either site C3 or C4 referenced to the ipsilateral ear. Using a well-studied language task, it was found performance of the left hemisphere improved with C4 training in boys and C3 training in girls. Although the results for the boys might be interpreted in terms of reduced inhibitory influence of the right hemisphere in language performance, initial levels of language performance for the boys make this conclusion tentative. However the girls' finding is more substantiated, indicating a focal impact for left-sided training and general impact for right-sided training. Girls improved in language performance in both right and left sided presentations after right-brain training (C4) but only for left-hemisphere presentations after left-brain training (C3).
One wrinkle to this study was the use of Hebrew-speakers (i.e., readers). Hebrew has a deep orthography, perhaps the world's deepest, which means letter-to-sound correspondences are ambiguous without knowledge of the word itself. English has a moderate depth to its orthography: some letters always map to the same sounds, some do not and vary from word to word. For instance, if I ask a waiter "Can I have the Caesar Salad?" the letter c is pronounced as a hard /k/ then as an /s/. Spelling-to-sound consistency can be illustrated by the nonword "ghoti" which is pronounced, of course, as "fish". How, you might ask? Well, "gh" in tough or rough sounds like /f/; "o" is pronounced like a short /i/ in "women" and "ti" is /sh/ in vacation and other words. Together these five letters in English can be pronounced as "fish" -- or "goatie" or "foatie" or foshie", etc. Languages with shallow orthographies, such as Serbo-Croatian, do not have such ambiguity or confusion to the assembly of sounds from the written word; the letter "c" is always pronounced /k/, "t" as /t/, etc. Hebrew is much removed from this ease. Hebrew is also written from right-to-left, unlike this sentence which is read and pronounced left to right. The right-to-left direction, more common to historically early writing systems, probably reflects greater involvement of the right hemisphere in deciphering stone inscriptions and the like.
In Levesque's study, 20 ADHD children (no psychostimulants, no co-morbidities) participated in a functional neuroimaging assessment of neurofeedback training. Fifteen children were randomly assigned to neurofeedback training and five were left as controls. Children in the neurofeedback conditions underwent 20 sessions of SMR-enhancement training (with theta inhibit) followed by 20 sessions of low Beta (15-18 Hz) enhancement (with theta inhibit) at site Cz referenced to the left earlobe. Sessions lasted 60 minutes each, three times a week.
Both groups were scanned while performing a Counting Stroop task one week before neurofeedback training began for the experimental group and one week after the end of training. Both groups showed activation of the left superior parietal lobe during task performance prior to training, but after training the group which underwent neurofeedback also showed significant activation of right anterior cingulate cortex. The anterior cingulate may be dysfunctional in ADHD, as evidenced by its inactivity in ADHD adults during the same task. The anterior cingulate is critical in the final stages of selective attention and response inhibition and the Stroop Task is all about inhibiting responses and attending selectively to information. In the original Stroop task subjects name the ink color which a word appears in so if the word "salad" appears in green ink, one responds "green" or clicks a key for this color. In the interference (difficult) version of this task, items are now colors words such as "red" in green ink or "green" in blue ink. One has to ignore the meaning of the word (red) and respond solely to its physical presentation (green). Reading for most individuals is highly automated and difficult to stop so most subjects are slowed and make errors during color-word presentations. In the Counting Stroop, subjects indicate how many words appear on a screen. In the neutral condition words are common animal terms such as bird or dog, and in the Interference condition words are numbers so a subject might see "three three three three" and have to press the key for four (i.e., the number of words on the screen).
Children who received neurofeedback training also showed left caudate and left substantia nigra activation during Counting Stroop performance, which is very consistent with ADHD as a dysfunction of dopaminergic transmission in fronto-striatal circuits. The authors suggest that SMR neurofeedback "led to the neuromodulation by dopamine of neural activity in the anterior cingulate-striatal circuit."
Children who underwent neurofeedback also showed improvement in digit span and attention (IVA) as well hyperactivity and inattentiveness assessments by parents on the Conners Rating Scales, whereas the controls show little change; but we've shown these behavioral improvments all before, without convincing the masses of professionals who fail to understand why learning is more powerful than medicating. Learning is the most powerful force of nature. It is through learning that a large violent aggressive ape is transformed into the paragon of animals... "in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!" to quote another author.
-DK
News & Reviews
NEW BOOKS
Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders
by Fred R. Volkmar
Two volume set includes state-of-the-art techniques in diagnosis, assessment, treatment and intervention.
Treating Sleep Disorders: Principles and Practice of Behavioral Sleep Medicine
by Michael L. Perlis, Kenneth L. Lichstein (Eds)
Systematic overview of behavioral sleep medicine.
Mood Disorders : Recognition and Treatment
by Edited by Peter R Joyce & Philip B Mitchell
Depression is fast becoming the most significant disease burden in the industrial world, next to heart disease.
Cognitive Systems - Information Processing Meets Brain Science
by Richard G.M. Morris, et al
Applying our knowledge of how living cognitive systems behave to design artificial systems.
The Encyclopedia Of Addictions And Addictive Behaviors
by Esther Gwinnell, Christine A. Adamec
Reference guide on addiction
Transforming the Difficult Child: The Nurtured Heart Approach
by Howard Glasser, Jennifer Easley
Parenting and teaching techniques and strategies that create positive behaviors.
Somatoform Dissociation: Phenomena, Measurement, and Theoretical Issues
by Ellert R. S. Nijenhuis
Describes how trauma, somatoform dissociation and defense may work together.
Psychic Trauma: Dynamics, Symptoms, and Treatment
by Ira Brenner
Clinical study of psychic trauma, focusing on two groups--early physical and sexual abuse and Holocaust survivors.
Mapping Cognition in Time and Space
by T Muente, H.J. Heinze
Focuses on high temporal resolution neuroimaging techniques -- event-related brain potentials, magnetoencephalography
Substance Abuse: A Comprehensive Textbook
by Joyce H. Lowinson, et al
Textbook on biological, psychological, and social aspects of substance abuse. For clinicians.
Autism And Williams Syndrome
by Helen Tager-Flusberg
Theory of mind as it emerges during childhood is discussed in reaction to autism and William's syndrome research.
Complementary and Alternative Therapies for Epilepsy
by Orrin Devinsky, et al
Provides a broader perspective of healthcare for seizure patients.
Mind, Brain, And Schizophrenia
by Peter Williamson
Instead of investigating its cause, the author argues, we should focus on the final symptoms and behaviors of schizophrenia in order to devise effective treatments.
The Boundaries of Consciousness: Neurobiology and Neuropathology
by Steven Laureys
Functional brain imaging techniques offer detailed, integrated exploration of neural and behavioral correlates of consciousness.
Intoxicating Minds: How Drugs Work
by Ciaran Regan
Humanity co-evolved with drugs. That process and how they have altered our very being is discussed in the context of new drug therapies.
Causes of Conduct Disorder and Juvenile Delinquency
by Benjamin B. Lahey
Causal models of conduct disorder are discussed including developmental pathways.
Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: Proactive Intervention
by Jean L. Blosser, Roberta DePompei
Addresses unique needs of children with traumatic brain injury and the role of speech- language pathologists in recovery of skills.
Neuropsychological Assessment
by Muriel Deutsch Lezak
Manual of neuropsychological assessment tools.
Clinical MR Neuroimaging: Diffusion, Perfusion and Spectroscopy
ISBN: 0521824575
Discusses technology and applications of clinical MRI machines.
Drug Abuse (Library in a Book)
ISBN: 0816048584
Review of drug dependency.
ARTICLES
Preadolescent conduct problems in girls and boys.
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Disruptive behavior disorders were evaluated by gender in nearly 6,000 British children. Certain child characteristics and interpersonal factors mediated this disorder.
Vigilance and fatigue following traumatic brain injury.
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TBI patients show greater psychophysiological exertion to maintain performance over time, with consequent fatigue.
Recognizing and treating depression in children and adolescents.
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Depression in teens is common and treatable, especially with multimodal treatment.
Low frequency rTMS stimulation of the right frontal cortex
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Moderate robust persistence of rTMS treatments over time were found.
Alcohol and adult neurogenesis in chronic alcoholism.
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Reviews opposing neurogenic processes associated with alcohol intoxication and abstinence.
Age-dependent decline of ADHD
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ADHD's persistence into adulthood depend until strictness of one's criteria. Partial remission criteria reveals 2/3rds of those with childhood ADHD suffering from ADHD symptoms as adults.
Mild traumatic brain injury and anxiety sequelae
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Greater consistencies across studies is needed to identify the impact of mTBI on various functional domains.
Sleep and psychiatry.
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Reviews prevalence of various psychiatric disorders and associated sleep disturbances.
Right hemisphere dominance in perceiving coherence of visual events.
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Perceiving coherent visual events is the job of various areas of the right hemisphere.
Gender differences in alcohol and substance use relapse.
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For women, marriage and marital stress were risk factors for relapse whereas marriage lowered relapse risk for men.
Violent video game effects on children and adolescents. A review
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Violent video game play is associated with aggressive affect, arousal, and aggressive behaviors.
Memory activation enhances EEG abnormality in mild cognitive impairment.
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Mild cognitive impairment patients show less decrease in the lower alpha band than controls during picture memory activation.
Maternal depression, child frontal asymmetry, and child affective behavior
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Childhood-onset depression children exhibited left frontal asymmetry associated with both anxious/depressed and aggressive child problems.
Spectrum-weighted EEG frequency as a quantitative indicator of mental arousal.
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Weighted mean frequency of the EEG spectrum may indicate general mental activation.
Treatment Outcomes for Women With Substance Abuse and PTSD
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Cognitive-behavioral therapy for women with comorbid substance use disorders and PTSD showed PTSD improvements but no effects on depression, dissociation, and social and sexual function.
Neuropsychological aspects for evaluating learning disabilities.
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Neurobiological correlates of learning disabilities are reviewed.
Functional neuroimaging studies of cognitive recovery after acquired brain damage
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Review of functional neuroimaging studies of stroke and traumatic brain injury.
PTSD and depression in parents of children with epilepsy.
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Many parents of children with epilepsy experience PTSD and depressive episodes.
White matter and behavioral neurology.
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The promising role of white matter connectivity is reviewed.
Impulsivity in abstinent alcoholics
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Early-onset alcoholics are more impulsive and aggressive than late-onset alcoholics.
Neurofeedback: efficacious treatment for ADHD
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Iillustrates treatment modalities and compares them to neurofeedback for ADHD
Clinical-Magnetic Resonance Imaging Correlations in Multiple Sclerosis.
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Discusses how MRI can assess degree and severity of the neurodegenerative diseases, particularly MS.
Clinical significance of sleep EEG abnormalities in chronic schizophrenia.
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Chronic undifferentiated schizophrenics suffer from disturbances in sleep continuity and slow wave sleep.
Can neurofeedback training enhance performance?
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Rationale for using neurofeedback to train individuals for peak performance.
Drinking behavior from high school to young adulthood
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Men who did not complete college showed alcohol risk in 12th grade and had a prolonged risk whereas women with less eduction had reduced risk.