What's New in Neurofeedback

• Brain Waves Pattern Themselves After Rhythms Of Nature
• Genetic Pathway Critical To Disease, Aging Found
• Gene Research May Help Explain Autistic Savants
• Listening To Music Improves Stroke Patients' Recovery
• New Patterns Of Brain Activation in LTM formation
• Mental Illness Is Subject To Biological And Sociocultural Factors
• Learning About Brains From Computers, And Vice Versa
• Do Animals Think Like Autistic Savants?
• Working Alone May Be Key To Better Productivity
• Sex Differences In Memory: Women Better at Remembering Everyday Events
• Very Young Found To Process Fear Memories In Unique Way
• What Is The Cognitive Rift Between Humans And Other Animals?

Links at http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/mind_brain/

This month I introduce (or re-introduce) our webpage "Start My Day with EEG Spectrum International," a good start page for anyone interested in mental health or neuroscience, http://start.eegspectrum.com. Not only are standard Start or Homepage information available -- News, Sports, Entertainment, and Weather -- but weekly updates on mental health and neuroscience books and articles, plus links to daily information on these topics and more plus a convenient array of search engines: Google, Wikipedia, Amazon.com, Medline, Dictionary,Thesaurus, and search within the massive website that is #1 in neurofeedback information since its inception in Dec 1995, EEG Spectrum (now) Intl.

The Astronomy picture of the Day is updated by NASA daily and weekly I find a relevant or irrelevant webcam such as the windiest place in the world (Mt Washington, NH) or the coldest (South Pole) or an upcoming conference locale or city of interest. Also available is a convenient all-in-one search page, http://start.eegspectrum.com/search.htm, where you can search the sites mentioned above along with Mapquest, phone books, Yahoo Sounds, Youtube, Flickr photos, and other useful sites.

On the Start page are links to many resources including science videos. As a professor I often used video to present material to my students. In fact I was called Dr Video by my colleagues, which I took as a compliment (even if it wasn't meant as one) because if you can find material in video format it conveys detail and nuance unavailable to the left hemisphere (words). You can talk until you're blue in the face about a rat who crosses an electrified grid for intracranial stimulation, but see it and remember it forever. Or talk about a person who continues to shock a stranger to death (or so he thinks, Milgram's obedience experiment), but watch the man's body language and his mind is revealed. Over the years I've built up one of the largest video archive of original psychology and related material and fortunately many of these videos are available freely online. Explaining the impact of a stroke on Broca's area is missed by no one when a lawyer with this predicament is tested by Norman Geschwind, for example, and this example is available (Brain: Teaching Module), along with countless others on brain function, injury, and psychopathology. See the "Video" links on the start page. Here are some highlights:

Scientific American Frontiers:

• http://www.pbs.org/saf/1302/video/watchonline.htm
• http://www.pbs.org/saf/1205/video/watchonline.htm
• Growing Up Different: Williams Syndrome, Autism, and other childhood inflictions
• Changing Your Mind: neuroplasticity
• Pieces of Mind: split brain patient research.
• It's a Kid's World: child development
• Make Up Your Mind: brain's frontal lobe as the seat of personality, including info on Phineas Gage and theory of mind, consciousness.
• The Wonder Pill: mysterious power of the placebo affect.

  Discovering Psychology with Dr Phil Zimbardo (26 half-hour episodes)

• http://www.learner.org/resources/series138.html
• Notable episodes:
• Episode 3: The Behaving Brain: structure and composition of the brain: neural function.
• Episode 4. The Responsive Brain: behavior and environment influencing brain structure.
• Episode 21: Psychopathology: Schizophrenia, phobias, and affective disorders are described; biological and psychological factors.
• Episode 25: Cognitive Neuroscience: focus on neuroimaging

  World of Abnormal Psychology

• http://www.learner.org/resources/series60.html
• Thirteen episodes ranging from anxiety disorders, personality disorders, substance abuse, and childhood behavioral disorders.

  Mind: Teaching Modules

• http://www.learner.org/resources/series150.html
• Ten minutes videos, 35 in all, with titles including Placebo Effect,Brain Mechanisms of Pleasure and Addiction, Frontal Lobes: Cognition and Awareness , Life Without Memory: The Case of Clive Wearing, Part 1 & 2 (an amazing story of a man without short-term memory like H.M. or the movie Memento), Infant Cognitive Development, and three modules on mood disorders

  Brain: Teaching Modules

• http://www.learner.org/resources/series142.html
• All the modules are relevant, but here are the ones I particularly think are useful:
• 1 .Organization and Evaluation of Brain Function
• 4. Intelligence and Culture: cultural hemisphericity
• 5. The Divided Brain: intro to split brain research
• 6. Language and Speech: Broca's and Wernicke's Areas
• 8. Visual Information Processing: Elementary Concepts and 2nd episode entitled Perception
• 17. Learning As Synaptic Change
• 25. Frontal Lobes and Behavior: The Story of Phineas Gage (a mini-movie, very entertaining look at this historic circumstance)
• 26-28. Schizophrenia: 3 full episodes
• 29. Autism
• 30. Understanding the Brain Through Epilepsy
• 31. Neurorehabilitation after TBI

  Brain-computer interface (BCI) Pfurtscheller lab

• http://bci.tugraz.at/downloads.html

-DK

News & Reviews NEW BOOKS

Executive Function in Education: From Theory to Practice
by Lynn Meltzer
Skills involved in high-order thinking are described and reviewed. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1593854285/eegspectrum

Becoming a Therapist: What Do I Say, and Why?
by Suzanne Bender
The basic process of therapy is explained in layperson terms. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572309431/eegspectrum

I Can't Remember Me: Recovery After Traumatic Brain Injury
by JM Urban, CM Larson
A woman's experience with family member with TBI. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1880292793/eegspectrum

The Highly Sensitive Person's Workbook
by Elaine Aron
Going beyond reflection and making resolutions to engage in new productive and creative directions. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0767903374/eegspectrum

You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
by Deborah Tannen
By conversation, men like to impart knowledge, women to connect emotionally, or so she says. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345372050/eegspectrum

The Bipolar Workbook: Tools for Controlling Your Mood Swings
by Monica Ramirez Basco
Suggestions, techniques, tools, and procedures to assist self-regulation in bipolar individuals. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1593851626/eegspectrum

Long-term effects of methylphenidate on neural networks : MPH treatment may improve neural correlates of attention. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=18030085

Alcohol and drug use following traumatic brain injury : Alcohol and drug use following TBI is similar to controls. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=18066940

Depressive symptoms and baseline prefrontal EEG alpha activity : Lower bilateral PFC activity was associated with rumination and lower right PFC activity predicted higher self-esteem. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=18079035

Long-term stability of EEG asymmetry and power in children. : Stability in EEG asymmetry for school-age children was similar to adult findings. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=18045715

EEG correlates of imagery-induced cigarette craving : Urge scripts decreased delta in male smokers and increased beta. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=18077100

Neurological soft signs in comorbid learning and ADHD : Speed of movement, dysrhythmia and overflow with timed movements may reflect the neurobiological bases of ADHD and LD. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=17990578

Alpha Activity of the Brain in EEG and fMRI Using Constrained ICA. : Constrained Independent Component Analysis produce alpha power maps which reasonably correspond to fMRI results. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=18003255

Optimal brain network synchrony visualization: Application in an alcoholism paradigm. : Alcoholic subjects have lower alpha and beta synchronization. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=18002949

Spotlight articles

1. AAPB - Monterey, 2007
2. Applied Social Psychophysiology
3. Brief History into Mind
4. Collapse Dynamics
5. Current Perspectives in Neuroscience, 2007
6. Mating Disorders
7. Periodicity Table
8. Principles of Learning: A quick refresher
9. Ranking EEG
10. Too Infinite a Mind
11. Word and Infinity
12. Year in Neurofeedback - 2007

Last Word

1. Auto-relation and creation
2. Dark Ages of Neurofeedback, revisited
3. Ending 2007 on a light note
4. Life is too short to be little
5. Living up to our Name
6. Placebo-resistant disorders
7. Psych Sayings
8. QEEG in your future
9. Surrounded by the Brain
10. 25 Online Tools
11. 2006 Index