What's New in Neurofeedback

• Bad Memories Stick Better Than Good
• Breakthrough drug for schizophrenia
• Study Probes Roots of Fearful Memories
• Blossoming brains
• The five biggest neuroscience developments of the year

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

"Current Perspectives in Neuroscience: Neuroplasticity and Neurofeedback," the 15th Annual conference of International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR), was held in San Diego last week. I designated this conference a "quiet-the-chatter" affair going into it. I had no talks to give, just workshops, so I minimized distractions and maximized interactions. This way I could reestablish connections to as many people as possible without being pulled about by anyone's agenda, including my own. It worked so well that I missed nearly every scheduled talk, along with the Saturday night gala at the famous San Diego Zoo; but I did get a chance to talk with many different people, more than usual.

Scientists and clinicians analyze EEG in one of three ways. We (1) qualify it with our brain (clinical EEG), or use a computer and (2) quantify and average large segments (QEEG) or (3) quantify and average short segments (ERP, EP). The latter has always been resistant to operant conditioning due to the low signal-to-noise of isolated segments, but Juri Kropotov believes he has a way to train ERPs. He leverages topographic and frequency information to train aspects of the ERP, those latter elements in time (100 ms+) involving volition such as the P300 latency. The funniest group moment at the conference occurred when Juri explained his idea and asked us, the audience, whether we had achieved the "happiness of understanding" from his talk. We did. Belgian neurosurgeon Dirk DeRidder followed Juri and he talked about synchronized hyperactivity of thalamocortical loops and argued that unhealthy brain behavior is often due to dysfunctional networks, not dysfunctional modules. Blame the neighborhood, not the brain area.

Jaime Pineda presented his work with autistics, Autistics show reduced mu activity in response to other people's action but not their own. It suggest impairment of the mirror neuron system, which emerged in primates to facilitate sociality. Every time we follow suit and fold our legs in response to our companion's leg movements, or yawn with our neighbors, our mirror neuron system has momentarily taken over. The mirror neuron system appears impaired in autistics, and the impairment can be quantified by EEG, but one question remains -- what exactly is mu? I've heard about it for years, but like the Yeti it remains elusive to some of us. Is mu another name for SMR? Or is mu alpha activity over the motor strip? I was taught that mu was in the alpha range, over the motor strips, and wicket shaped, and that only 10% of people show it. How can anything fundamental in neurophysiology appear only sporadically in the population. Such a statement sounds to me like, only 10% of people show evidence of a cerebellum. Huh? Perhaps mu is SMR or alpha and the unique waveform morphology is due to overlapping fields of energy, two flows masked as one. If an electrode is placed directly above a sulcus or similar curvature of the cortex below, I suspect the incoming fields from adjutting gyri could mask each other and produce the wicket. I've never seen mu in my records, but I wasn't looking for it. I wonder if I saw it, could I move the electrode a few millimeters away and lose the wicket. If so, then mu is alpha. But the other idea is that mu is alpha with some SMR cells incidentally recruited, which would make it a different animal entirely.

Leslie Sherlin and Marco Congedo explained independent component analysis, which is very promising. With ICA we transform the cacophony of signals at the scalp into independent signatures. Eyeblinks have distinctive signatures, alpha bursts have distinctive signatures, anything systematically generated from cortex, including mu, presumably.

I talked briefly with Karl Pribram about imaginary numbers and dimensions. He co-developed the theory of the holographic universe decades ago with Bohm, Einstein's colleague, that all is surface. I prefer volumes, although I see the pull of such a theory. And math seems stuck on surfaces in terms of number systems (imaginary and real) with little consideration of a 3rd dimension of numbers. Karl reminds me how there is only one life, as there is only one universe.

I sat down with Bob Thatcher at his booth and was impressed by his reduction of coherence into two parts, a chaotic stage where information control is selected, followed by a locking stage where the brain unites under selective pressure. Phase shifting and locking between sites may be independently tracked (phase reset and continuance). I held off including phase reset to my SKIL software because I wasn't sure which comparison to derive my phase relationships from --should I use autophase or cross-phase? Bob chose cross phase, phase relationship mapped to a common site (such as Cz), which is not a solution but a start. For some reason he doesn't busy himself with energy relationships, and the analogous amplitude reset. As it so happens, coherence is the composite of phase behaviors, phase freedom and phase pressure. Comodulation likewise captures energy behaviors. Magnitude consistency (comodulation) reflects energy freedom and energy locking, energy gain and loss. Energy is a form of extreme timing -- there is so much timing it is difficult to see or quantify. A comparison of energy and timing would reveal when phase gain coincides with energy gain and when it does not. Recent research suggests memory itself, memory formation, is a coupling of hippocampal archicortex to rhinal neocortex (Mormann et al., 2005), so understanding the interaction of energy and timing would lead to applications that restore memories and other applications which relieve and eliminate painful memories.

Students are the lifeblood of any field and our student presentations were top notch, remarkably solid this year as always. I like to welcome students to our interesting field with the following greeting, "Welcome to the Center of the Known Universe." It is their first warning.

Finally I ran into my spiritual neuroscience crew, Mario Beauregard, his beautiful counterpart Johanne Levesque, and Vincent Paquette. Last AAPB I introduced Mario as the older brother I wish I had grown up with. Such a brother could have made things easier for me, I'm sure. And harder. We share common sensitivities. In fact I spent most nights in our hotel labyrinth walking about, flowing between raptured and disrapture, and wondering about God and Jesus and whether I would know anyone at the local pub. Speaking of pubs, Mario just published "The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul" which I found in the Religion section of Borders. Religion is one way to study the infinities of our dimension. (http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Brain-Neuroscientists-Case-Existence/dp/0060858834/)

www.isnr.org/PanelsClinicalCorners.cfm

This is the first September in nearly a decade in which I will not teach. I'll be working on raising the dead instead. Well, nearly so, as we are building an EEG monitor for neurointensive care ( wavestate.net). Apparently medical science has use for quantification of cerebral activity after all. The state of the art in coma induction and maintenance for treating status epilepticus and head injury is by registering regular properties of the EEG (i.e., quantifying the signal). Brain injury is a silent epidemic in our country, striking nearly 1.5 million Americans each year and responsible for 50,000 deaths. Nearly 1 in 3 people will suffer a TBI during his or her lifetime and 1 in 14 will be hospitalized. Pediatric head injury is unimagineably worse, happening during a developmental trajectory. My goal is to introduce QEEG assessment of cerebral activity after brain injury to the UCLA brain injury crew, with the hope that neurotherapies will follow.

-DK

News & Reviews NEW BOOKS

Beyond the Wall: Personal Experiences with Autism and Asperger Syndrome
by Stephen M. Shore
Early 1960s diagnosee describes his life. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931282196/eegspectrum

Dementia: A Clinical Approach
by Mario Mendez
Information about dementia for clinicians. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0750674709/eegspectrum

Brave New Brain: Conquering Mental Illness in the Era of the Genome
by Nancy C. Andreasen
First stirrings of genetics contribution to symptomatology. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195145097/eegspectrum

Biological Psychology: Behavioral, Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience
by Mark R. Rosenzweig
Useful textbook for any neurotherapist or similar professional. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0878937099/eegspectrum

Facing Shame: Families in Recovery
by Merle A. Fossum
According to Fossum, it's all about setting limits. --www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393305813/eegspectrum

Cortical Connectivity Reflected in EEG Coherence in Autism. : Locally elevated theta coherence was found for ASD adults, especially within left hemisphere frontal and temporal lobe. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=17336944

Genetic influences on bipolar EEG power spectra. : Variability in bipolar EEG recordings are derived to a great degree by genetic factors. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=17383039

Quantitative EEG in aging and in the evolution of dementia. : EEG may be used to predict future declines associated with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=17413018

Electrophysiological activity underlying inhibition in late-life depression : Frontal dysfunction in the depressed group was observed in p300b measure for Go/NoGo task. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=17462822

EEG power and coherence in dyslexic children : Dyslexic children show increased slow activity in frontal and right temporal regions www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=17472228

Ten Hz rTMS on resting EEG power spectrum in healthy subjects. : Over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, 10 Hz rTMS induced reliably increased delta. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=17478041

Meditation on frontal alpha-asymmetry in previously suicidal individuals. : Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is effective to counter decreased relative left-frontal activation and associated suicidality in suicide attempters. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=17426604

No species on the planet owes its existence more to climate change than us. Three million years ago Africa went dry and we are the result.

The creative continent released 2 or 3 editions of humankind every 500,000 years or so, but most were absorbed by the many climate cycles (50) since our separation from apes. Only a lucky few of us stuck around. Those who fought off cold, heat, arid conditions, rise and fall of critical vegetation, somehow adapted genetically and culturally and survived. Until the next crisis. For good or bad the few has become one. We are Last Standing, the sole bearer of the title of humankind out of two dozen attempts at Hominid.

Here are our attempts, in near chronological order, according to a few physical anthropologists:
1. Sahelanthropus tchadensis
2. Kenyanthropus platyops
3. Ardipithecus ramidus
4. Australopithecus afarensis
5. Australopithecus africanus
6. Australopithecus bahrelghazali
7. Australopithecus aethiopicus
8. Paranthropus boisei
9. Paranthropus robustus
10. Australopithecus anamensis
11. Australopithecus garhi
12. Homo rudolfensis
13. Homo habilis
14. Homo ergaster
15. Homo erectus
16. Homo antecessor
17. Homo heidelbegensis
18. Homo neanderthalensis
19. Homo sapiens
20. (subspecies) Homo sapiens sapiens

We were not the only species or genus affected by climate cycles but we were the only group to win an eternal advantage from periodic chaos. Stormy weather acted like a rogue wave righting a capsized ship. We were restored to Predator. We return to our mammalian roots, Insect Eater, a method of inspection, response, and pursuit that successfully routed large reptiles and after 100 million years of cohabitation with dinosaurs, dinosaurs. Bipedal primates went from being eaten to eaters in moments, geologically speaking, prey to predator. We no longer chewed for a living, afraid for our lives from the Killers; we now ate. When East Africa went dry 2.7 million years ago, we parted ways with earthier cousins (Paranthropus), who chewed for a living and continued to fear Killers, and we tried our hand at hunting. We began small, foraging for the occasional ripe tidbit or unlucky rodent who crossed paths. But as time moved forward, so did we. As fellow hunters, we now had a chance against Killers. It took a while, longer than anyone could imagine, but we eventually uprooted the Great Cats from their throne, thanks to Mother Nature and a growing brain. (The aftermath of this great victory, tooling ourselves into Greater Killers, remains with us to this day.)

But Mother Nature was not done with us yet. Our lack of jaw power forced us to use whatever was at hand to meek out a living. Fast-forward a million years and our lack of mandible muscular saved us when Mother Nature threw another curveball at Planet Earth, killing off the vegetation our bamboo-chomping brethren relied upon. Gorillas would eventually repopulate the chewing-for-a-living slot left by our extinct cousins, but we hardly noticed, obsessed as we were with our hands. We motored on, fending off a series of curveballs. The Ice Ages descended and we now faced competitors of our ilk, hominids, in habitats we needed for our continuance, in Asia and Europe. We adapted. We loved our hands, but we added Thought to our arsenal. We responded with response inhibition, thanks to a growing focus on our brain's control of our beloved hands. Response inhibition -- holding off the movements of the hands -- led to volition, the most powerful idea ever created. And out of volition emerged love, a new way to relate socially, a freedom to connect to others or not. Love's first dividend was diversity, enabling us to unite with those like us and unlike us. We loved each other, and this meant we could group more freely, more under our control, while Neanderthals grouped only one way, the primate way, tightly. We could group tightly and loosely. Our sense of ourselves deepened. We could now manage dozens of faces, many times the social capacity of our competitors. And with such numbers grew variety of action and response, creativity and foresight. All of our competitors used tools, but we built more of them, more types, more varieties, more uses. We built hammers and saws and IPods... and all the while we have been living on borrowed time.

We live between ice ages. We are 12,000 years into a warm spell (Holocene era) but everything will rotate back to ice and snow in a few thousand years if we don't intervene. Earth is phase locked on three axes, rotational precession (our wobble), tilt variation (drifting between 23 and 24 degrees), and elliptical eccentricity of our orbit around the Sun. We should expect Ice Ages for some time into the future, unless we change it. And it looks like we have.

We intervened, perhaps prematurely, before we can control a global transformation. Until now, the Sun and Earth were to blame for weather, magnetic fields on one side, mechanics on the other. Add carbon and we are faced with a crisis of our doing. Or undoing. Regardless of the source of our current heat wave -- solar system dynamics or red meat production -- we face a crisis, and our species will survive only if we respond maturely. We are faced with the greatest threat to agriculture since its inception, and the eventual return of hundreds of cities to the sea. In our own lifetime we may take a gondola down the canals of New York City.

Some of us need to look past responsibility and begin to consider our response. We are in free fall. Who pushed us off the cliff is significant but irrelevant to our strategy. We may be able slow free fall, perhaps, but we cannot stop it. Instead we need to learn to fly and quickly. We need to extend our wings and glide into a landing if we are to survive. We need to manage weather and protect coastal cities from water.

That we live in an age of catastrophic weather is nothing new. That our kind recognizes it is. Climate change was the engine behind brain growth. We leapt from bipedal primates (australopithecus) to brainy bipedals (Homo habilis) to brainy toolmakers (Homo sapiens) in large part because we couldn't stand the heat of the African sun. We won a neural "arms race" lasting tens of millions of years against cats and our own kind and all the while it was played out against a backdrop of habitat loss.

The Earth hosted three human species as recently as 25,000 years ago, Erectus, Neanderthals, and us. We emerged victorious in our two-front encounter, Europe and Asia, perhaps because we lived up to our subspecies' name, Homo sapiens sapiens, which means "man, twice as wise". The question is, are we up to the task again?