Neurofeedback News

• Time past, time future intricately connected in the brain: study
• Sea Slug Offers Clues to Human Brain Disorders
• Poor lung function tied to higher stroke risk
• As Minds Age, What's Next? Brain Calisthenics
• Drink 'cuts brain injury damage'

  All links at news.yahoo.com/fc/Science/Brain_Research

For more than a hundred years we've known that certain brain functions are performed solely within one hemisphere and not the other (e.g., Broca, 1865; Coslett, 2007). Speech and metaphor, mathematical calculation and visual imagery, perception of phonemes and perception of emotions, are all strongly lateralized. Facial recognition, for instance, is localized to the right posterior hemisphere in most individuals and damage to the left posterior cortex has little effect on this function. Left hemisphere structures alone appear to mediate appetitive drives and positive emotions whereas right brain structures underlie aversive states and negative emotions such as disgust (Davidson, 1998; Robinson & Downhill, 1995). Occasionally the two modes of processing are complementary, but often each hemisphere feud like siblings, interfering with the other’s behavior. In split brain patient research it is not uncommon to obtain a response from a hemisphere poorly equipped for a task, even when the other hemisphere is better organized to handle such stimuli such as phoneme identification. The same is true for normal (brain intact) individuals (e.g., Zaidel, 1995), which means that competition is the rule inside the head as well as out.

That brain function reflects incompatible modes of ideation in constant competition with each other has powerful implications for neurotherapy. Neurofeedback may be used to restore balance to hemispheric processing and initiate a reintegration of the two sides of the brain, or it may be used to differentiate hemispheric function when that is called for. Periodically activating one hemisphere and not the other can allocate attention to underused faculties and even help establish left-sided dominance when lacking. Unihemispheric activation on its own, regardless of induction technique, may prove to be effective for a wide range of psychopathologies. In 1970 Eran Zaidel developed the z-lens, contact lenses with darkened visual fields, either the left or right half. (Z-lens were recently featured on the CBS show "3 Lbs".) His research focused on split-brain patients and hemispheric specialization, and not clinical application directly, but Schiffer (1997) revived z-lens for therapy. He placed masking tape over the left (LVF) or right visual fields (RVF) of safety glasses and he found that most patients reported more anxiety while wearing the z-glasses (though he did not call the apparatus by this name). Depressed patients reported more anxiety with LVF glasses (RVF-blocked/RH activating) and PTSD patients had more anxiety wearing RVF glasses.

In terms of neurotherapy, preferential activation or inhibition of a single hemisphere may augment the therapeutic effect of EEG training. Unihemispheric activation or inhibition could be readily attained with unilateral (one-sided) photic stimulation by simply instructing individuals to look far to the right or left (even through closed eyelids), thereby restricting stimulation to one visual field and one hemisphere. Or EEG biofeedback could be lateralized by wearing z-glasses during part of a session, or by simply instructing a client to focus to the left or right of the field of stimulation (i.e., left or right edge of the PC monitor). I made my own pair of z-glasses last year and watched a movie in a theatre so adorned. Although my occluded right brain should have been able to "watch the movie" via signals through my intact corpus callosum (minimizing the effect of stimulus lateralization), it didn’t. Wearing the unusual glasses changed the experience (and not just socially!). It made the film’s story hollow, with little emotional traction, until I took the glasses off and let my right brain share in the content stream directly. Apparently the 200-million-fiber "ether cable" between my hemispheres down-sampled the content so that my right brain caught only a rendering of the information and not the information itself. In other words callosal transfer is no substitute for direct input via the senses. So the z-glasses work.

I also wore an ear plug in my left ear while watching the film. Unilateral acoustic stimulation is another way to facilitate unihemispheric activation. Unlike vision, our auditory system is not perfectly crossed and each ear sends information to each hemisphere. Fortunately, in this context, the ipsilateral (same side) pathway is weak so plugging the contralateral ear should greatly diminish auditory contributions to this hemisphere. Dichotic ear presentations using stereo headphones with reward sent into the contralateral ear and white noise or competing sounds in the other would be the optimal approach to leverage the auditory system for unihemispheric activation. So to activate the left hemisphere, one may block the LVF and plug the left ear (or send competing irrelevant sounds to this ear). To activate the right hemisphere, block and plug the right visual field and ear. Given different widths between human eyes, z-glasses should be tailored to the individual (i.e., each client gets her own taped safety goggles). To adjust z-glasses to an individual, the wearer looks straight into a mirror and aligns the tape until only half of his or her pupil of each eye can be seen by the wearer. As for unihemispheric acoustic stimulation, if different sounds cannot be channeled separately into left and right stereo headphones, two sets of headphones straddled over each other like an X may be used, with one set running off the feedback device and the other set of headphones connected to an irrelevant tape recording or similar non-feedback device.

Blinding the other hemisphere to reward may be necessary for functional improvements of a deficit system. Unihemispheric augmentation of neurotherapy may add surprising and powerful results. If anyone gives it a try, please let me know what you find.

References:

Broca, P. (1865), "Sur le siège de la faculté du langage articulé", Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, 6, 377-393.

Coslett HB. (2007). Temporal processing deficits in letter-by-letter reading by Ingles and Eskes. J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2007 Jan;13(1):108-9

Davidson RJ (1998). Anterior electrophysiological asymmetries, emotion, and depression: Conceptual and methodological conundrums. Psychophysiology, 35: 607-614.

Robinson, R. G. & Downhill, J. E. (1995). Lateralization of psychopathology in response to focal brain injury. In Brain asymmetry (eds R.J. Davidson & K. Hugdahl), 693-711, London: MIT Press.

Schiffer F (1997). Affect changes observed with right versus left lateral visual field stimulation in psychotherapy patients: possible physiological, psychological, and therapeutic implications. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 38, 289-95.

Zaidel, E. (1995) Interhemispheric transfer in the split brain: long term status following complete cerebral commissurotomy. In Brain asymmetry (eds R.J. Davidson & K. Hugdahl), 491-532, London: MIT Press.

-DK

News & Reviews NEW BOOKS

The Gift Of ADHD: How To Transform Your Child's Problems Into Strengths
by Lara Honos-Webb
Argues that kids with ADHD are expressing in their symptomatic behavior imagination, insight, and unusual intuition.

Epilepsy: A New Approach
by A Richard & J Reiter
Writer with epilepsy and a physician collaborate on this condition.

American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Mood Disorders
by Dan J. Stein, David J. Kupfer, and Alan F. Schatzberg
Authoritative reference for current information about mood disorders.

Social Neuroscience: People Thinking about Thinking People
by JT Cacioppo, PS Visser, CL Pickett (Eds)
Mental and brain function during social cognition, emotion, and behavior.

Addiction and Change: How Addictions Develop and Addicted People Recover
by Carlo C. DiClemente
Paradigm for understanding addictive behavior.

Parenting Children With Adhd: 10 Lessons That Medicine Cannot Teach
by Vincent J. Monastra
Balanced approach to treating children, including shoft-term medication when necessary.

Seizures and Epilepsy in Childhood: A Guide
by John M. Freeman, Eileen P. G. Vining, and Diana J. Pillas
Assists parents in a child's care who suffers from epilepsy

New Hope for Children and Teens with Bipolar Disorder
by Boris Birmaher
Proper diagnosis and early intervention is key to success recovery from bipolar disorder.

The Student's Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience
by Jamie Ward
Guide to cognitive neuroscience for the student.

7 Tools to Beat Addiction
by Stanton Peele
Self-help guide by an addiction therapist.

Learning To Slow Down & Pay Attention: A Book for Kids About ADHD
by Kathleen G. Nadeau, Ellen B. Dixon, Charles Beyl
Written from the child's point of view, for ages 6-11.

Treating Epilepsy Naturally : A Guide to Alternative and Adjunct Therapies
by Patricia A. Murphy
Treatment options and other information on epilepsy presented by one with the condition.

Mood Disorders: A Practical Guide
by S. Nassir Ghaemi
For clinicians - assists in diagnosing mood disorders.

Teaching With The Brain In Mind
by Eric Jensen
Basic introduction to the brain and its various systems- a revision of a bestseller.

ADD/ADHD Behavior-Change Resource Kit
by Grad L. Flick
Ppractical strategies to help kids with attention deficits learn to control and change behaviors and build necessay skills.

Growing Up with Epilepsy: A Practical Guide for Parents
by Lynn Bennett Blackburn
How to raise a child with epilepsy -- from discipline to education.

Dealing with Depression: A Commonsense Guide to Mood Disorders
by Gordon Parker
Traditional and alternative approaches for treating depression are reviewed.

The Female Brain
by Louann Brizendine
Neurohormonal and anatomical aspects of women.

ARTICLES

Attentional state: children with ADHD on and off medication. : Deficits in frequency discrimination but not frequency modulation detection were influenced by being on ADHD medication.

Cognitive-behaviour therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome : Interestingly, utcome for CBT for CFS was better at followup for individuals subjected to randomized controlled trials.

Severe mood dysregulation in children. : Severe mood dysregulation is not uncommon in childhood and places an individual at risk for early adulthood depression.

Disruption of cortical-limbic interaction as a substrate for comorbidity. : Prefrontal cortex dysfunction disrupts its ability to modulate the amygdala, making stressors more significant.

Cell density in the orbitofrontal cortex in alcohol dependence : Alcoholic dependent individuals show lower density of neurons and glial cells in Brodmann area 47.

Self-and Other-Assessments of Social Competence: Developmental Study. : With young children ADHD and depression was mediated by others' appraisal of social competence.

False lateralization of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy : Discrepancy between neurophysiological examinations and imaging indicates need for bilateral subdural electrode measurements for mTLE.

Will neuroimaging ever be used to diagnose pediatric bipolar disorder? : Current subjective diagnostic techniques such as those that rely on parent and child interview and symptomatic history may be replaced by brain imaging.

Self-regulation of Slow Cortical Potentials for ADHD : Slow cortical potential feedback appears to be "possibly efficacious" for ADHD children.

Hippocampus volume loss due to chronic heavy drinking. : Heavy drinking may selectively damage the hippocampus.

Functional Connectivity of Frontal Cortex in ADHD Children : ADHD children show elevated coherence in lower alpha activity and reduced coherence in the upper alpha (10-11 Hz).

MRS detects brain injury and predicts cognitive function in TBI children : Longitudinal investigation of traumatic brain injury in children found neurometabolite ratios which correlated with neuropsychological performance.

Regional Cerebral Glucose Metabolic Abnormalities in Bipolar II Depression. : Bipolar depression is associated with increased metabolism in amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate, and other areas.

Neural Synchrony in Brain Disorders : A wide range of disorder mights be explained by abnormalities in neuronal synchronization and temporal coordination.

Why are women from Venus and men from Mars when they abuse cocaine? : Role of gonadal hormones on sex-specific behavioral responses to cocaine are discussed.

ADHD involves differential cortical processing in visual spatial attention : ADHD may involve an unusual distribution of attentional resources at later stages of processing.

Decision-making after Traumatic Brain Injury in Children : In contrast to adult data, children with amygdala lesions were impaired on the Iowa Gambling Task but children with ventromedial lesions were not.

Understanding neurobiology of comorbidity in anxiety disorders. : Anxiety and depression are independent entities, but shared abnormalities in certain receptor function may explain some comorbidities.

Learning-disabled children treated with neurofeedback or placebo. : Two years after neurofeedback or placebo, EEG maturation was appropriate for the treated group, who also showed positive behavioral changes and LD remission symptoms.

Gambling Behavior, Substance Use & Mood and Anxiety Disorders. : Mood or anxiety disorders or substance dependence places adults at higher risk for gambling problems.

Sex Differences in Development of Conduct Problems and Delinquency. : More males follow a childhood-onset trajectory for conduct disorder.

EEG-fMRI using z-shimming in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. : Loss of signal does not reduce spike-related BOLD signal detections in TLE.

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortical activity in depression. : Brodmann area 9 were involved in depression, but the direction of activity changes varied.

EEG/fMRI measurements at 7 Tesla using a new EEG cap. : Co-registration technology improvements are discussed.

DSM-IV alcohol dependence: a categorical or dimensional phenotype? : Diagnoses are necessary for clinical practice decisions, but dimensions of alcohol-dependence are helpful in research.