Brain, Mind, and Neurofeedback: The Next 100 Years
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When the space shuttle Atlantis returns from the International Space Station it will mark the end of an era for American space travel. We will all be holding our breath for its final safe landing to end a brilliant 30 year career. Reflecting on this, Lawrence Klein, Vice President and Co-Founder of Thought Technology Ltd., recalls, “One of our company’s proudest achievements was to have its FlexComp Infiniti system chosen as the physiological monitoring equipment used in NASA’s NEEMO-9 project.” Included in this report is a video that explains how biofeedback was used in support of the NASA mission.
Treating chronic migraines with behavioral approaches – such as biofeedback, relaxation training, and hypnosis – can make financial sense compared to prescription-drug treatment, especially after a year or more, a new study found. Longtime behavioral therapy researcher and practitioner Dr. Donald Penzien, University of Mississippi Medical Center professor of psychiatry, coauthored the study.
Egocentric, self-centred, and insensitive to the needs of others: these social problems often arise in people with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and have been attributed in part to a loss of emotional empathy, the capacity to recognise and understand the emotions of other people. Given that traumatic brain injuries are becoming more common, and resulting empathy deficits can have negative repercussions on social functioning and quality of life, it is increasingly important to understand the processes that shape emotional empathy. A new study has recently revealed evidence of a relationship between physiological responses to anger and a reduction of emotional empathy post-injury, as reported in the May 2011 issue of Elsevier’s Cortex.
The International Society For Neurofeedback And Research (ISNR) will hold its 2011 annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona. ISNR conferences are the premier international meetings for healthcare professionals, students, teachers, and researchers who are interested in psychophysiology, particularly peripheral biofeedback, neurofeedback, and quantitative EEG (QEEG).
The Fort Jackson Army Substance Abuse Program, which traditionally addresses issues of alcohol and drug abuse, will expand its programs by offering a six-week stress and anxiety reduction class, scheduled to begin Wednesday. Pierre Wilkins, a social worker with ASAP, explained that the goal is for people to identify stressors and stress symptoms and to learn how to reduce their stress levels. A second class building on the first one may become available if the need arises.
In 2004, I introduced the concept of the “bridge.” Since that time, this author and others have been working with bridges to understand their significance in facilitating conscious influence of the body/mind. Humans, in fact vertebrate life in general, interact with the environment via fifteen bodily functions or “interfaces”. These input/output functions include the eyes, the nose, the lips, the jaw, the ears, the tongue, the throat (larynx and glottis), the hands, the breasts, the diaphragm, the urethral sphincter, the vaginal sphincter, the anal sphincter, the feet, and the skin.
A recent investigation published by the British Medical Journal BMJ concluded that Dr. Andrew Wakefield misrepresented or altered the medical histories of all 12 of the patients whose cases formed the basis of a 1998 study linking Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) to childhood vaccines. Regardless of the cause, in the past decade there has been a huge increase in the incidence of children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD).
Scientists have found that the pleasurable experience of listening to music releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain important for more tangible pleasures associated with rewards, such as food, drugs, and sex. The new study from The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital – The Neuro at McGill University also reveals that even the anticipation of pleasurable music induces dopamine release [as is the case with food, drug, and sex cues]. The publisher has made this study available for free download for an unknown amount of time. Check the end of this report for a download link.
When faced with decisions, we often follow our intuition – our self-described “gut feelings” – without understanding why. Our ability to make hunch decisions varies considerably: Intuition can either be a useful ally or it can lead to costly and dangerous mistakes. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that the trustworthiness of our intuition is really influenced by what is happening physically in our bodies.
Ambassador to Germany, Dr. Peter Boehm, and the Canadian High Commissioner to Dusseldorf, Leslie Reissner, paid a visit to the Thought Technology Ltd. booth at Medica, where 137,000 visited for 4 days. Included in this announcement is a video interview with Olivier Jean (short track speed skating gold medalist) and Dr. Pierre Beauchamp (sports psychologist) who discuss the use of biofeedback in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Although the video is obviously produced by Thought Technology to promote their biofeedback devices, it is actually a very interesting demonstration of the use of biofeedback, including neurofeedback, in professional sports.
