I am pleased to provide this unsolicited announcement for my friends at The International Society For Neurofeedback & Research (ISNR). It is time to pre-register for the ISNR 2009 Annual Conference, which will be in Indianapolis, Indiana this year. ISNR conferences provide fantastic learning and training opportunities for professionals who are involved in biofeedback, neurofeedback, and quantitative EEG (QEEG). These meetings also give professionals a chance to meet highly regarded researchers and clinicians and to learn about the latest developments in the field. Pre-conference workshops are scheduled for August 31 – September 2 and the main conference is from September 3-6. Additional information can be found here.
Be sure and check the comments section below for loads of important updates to the ISNR 2009 Annual Conference.
Enjoy.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
ISNR is pleased to announce that J. Peter Rosenfeld, Ph.D., a professor at Northwestern University School of Brain, Behavior and Cognition Psychology will be an Invited Speaker at the 17th Annual ISNR Conference this September. Dr. Rosenfeld’s lab has focused in the past ten years exclusively on mechanisms, classification, and detection of deception, malingering, and false memory. The principal method used to study the deception phenomenon is the P300 Event Related Potential of the EEG, though they have recently collaborated with labs in Belgium and at Harvard to utilize and compare imaging ERP and fMRI data.
In 2004 Dr. Rosenfeld and his colleagues demonstrated that the classic P300 test for concealed information, which their lab first published in 1987, was as vulnerable to countermeasures as were older polygraphs. This finding, in conjuction with government funding agencies after the events of 9/11, pushed them to develop two novel protocols. The first involved subliminal presentation of key stimuli: If you don’t know the stimulus is presented, you cannot counter it. This method is 80 to 85% accurate but totally impossible to counter. They are currently focused on their “Complex Trial Protocol.” This is a novel, P300-based protocol for detection of concealed information. It is 92 to 100% accurate with or without mental or physical countermeasures. It has been used in both malingering and forensic situations, and has most recently been applied to an anti-terrorist scenario in which the experimenter does not know in advance what the details of the future crime are.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
We want YOU to attend our conference this year.
In response to the current economic situation ISNR is offering a deep discount for very early conference registrations for ISNR members. This fee of $325* is for those who register on or before June 4. The rate will increase to $395 between June 5th and August 4, and will be $495 thereafter.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
ISNR is pleased to announce that Felipe Fregni, M.D., Ph.D. will be one of the Invited Speakers at the 17th Annual ISNR Conference. Dr. Fregni has been the Director of Clinical Trials Network at The Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation since March, 2003. He is also an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. His interests lie in the study of methods of non-invasive brain stimulation such as repetitive magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Dr. Fregni’s conference presentation is titled “Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS): Putative Mechanisms of Action and Clinical Effects of a Simple and Powerful Method of Cortical Electrical Stimulation”.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
Why Indianapolis for ISNR 2009?
You may be wondering why we selected Indianapolis for the site of this year’s ISNR Conference. None of the members of the conference site selection committee were familiar with Indianapolis but we were all pleasantly surprised and very impressed during our visit last year.
The Indianapolis airport is served by 19 airlines with over 170 flights daily, with airfares that are lower than in many other major cities. For those who would rather drive, the city is a day’s drive or less for more than half the population of the United States, and is also easily accessible by car from many Canadian cities.
Downtown Indianapolis offers more than 200 restaurants in a clean, well designed environment. Museums, parks, performing arts venues, professional sports, and historic landmarks are all within walking distance of the Marriott Indianapolis Hotel.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
ISNR is pleased to announce that Marco Congedo, Ph.D. will be an Invited Speaker at the 17th Annual ISNR Conference this year. In 2003 Dr. Congedo obtained his Ph.D. in Biological Psychology with a minor in Statistics from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. From 2003 to 2006 he was a post-doc fellow at the French National Institute for Research in Informatics and Control (INRIA) and at France Telecom R&D, in France. Since 2007 Dr. Congedo has been a Senior Scientist at the “Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique” (CNRS) in the GIPSA Laboratory, Grenoble, France.
Dr. Congedo has been the recipient of several awards, scholarships and research grants. He interests include basic human electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG), real-time neuroimaging (neurofeedback and brain computer interface) and multivariate statistical tools useful for EEG and MEG such as inverse solutions and blind source separation. Dr. Congedo is a Fellow of the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research and a Consulting Editor for the Journal of Neurotherapy.
The schedule for the 17th Annual ISNR Conference is now online. Abstracts for preconference workshops, afternoon workshops and the free post-conference vendor seminars are also available. Abstracts for oral papers, panels and posters will be online soon. Check http://www.isnr.org/2009Conference.cfm for more details.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
The International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR) is pleased to announce that Daniel T. Johnston, MD, MPH will be a Keynote Speaker at the 17th Annual ISNR Conference this September. Dr. Johnston is currently an instructor for the Department of Defense at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI) in Bethesda, MD. He is also an adjunct Professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences School of Medicine Bethesda, MD.
Dr. Johnston practices medicine at the US Pentagon and is a co-owner of Neurotopia, a neurofeedback practice in California where he has integrated his knowledge to create specific omega-3/antioxidants combinations to enhance the benefits of neurofeedback for patients and world class athletes, as well as provide for overall optimal mental and cardiovascular health. He is the founder and CEO of NaturalMedInfo, LLC, an educational company to help teach physicians about the benefits and roles specific nutritional supplements in clinical medicine.
Dr. Johnston in board certified in Aerospace Medicine by the American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM) and is the author of the US Navy’s Aeromedical policy on the use of dietary supplements during aviation duties. Dr. Johnston has been assisting NASA with the development of a specific supplement to help protect and improve the health of astronauts during long duration spaceflight.
The deadline for the special early registration rate for members of the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research’s 17th Annual Conference is Wednesday, June 3.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
The International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR) is pleased to announce that Dirk De Ridder, M.D., Ph.D. will be an Invited Speaker at the 17th Annual ISNR Conference in September.
Dr. De Ridder is a neurosurgeon working in Antwerp, Belgium. His research is focused on the pathophysiology and treatment of phantom perceptions. He developed the technique of electrical auditory cortex stimulation for tinnitus and somatosensory cortex stimulation for pain. Recently, implants were performed for auditory hallucinations.
The International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR) is pleased to announce a special Panel on Wednesday evening, September 2, at the 17th Annual ISNR Conference entitled “Neurofeedback: The Past, Present and Future”.
As any previous ISNR attendee will tell you much of the learning experience occurs in the hallways and around dinner tables with experienced providers. In my early career and still today I find catching conversation with the brightest minds of our field to be the most satisfying and educational experiences and the one that I always remember most from the conferences. If you’re lucky enough to find an empty seat at a table with one of our elder pioneers or an up and coming innovator you should take advantage of this opportunity to just capture the stories of their experience. In the meantime, I have invited and created a special panel that has quickly become an ISNR favorite for bringing this same idea into a room for all to enjoy.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
Our first special panel took place in 2008 with contributions from Tom Budzynski, Joel Lubar and Barry Sterman. It was truly one of the most entertaining and educational events of the conference as we all came together to share experiences and speculate about our common future. The panel participants are given a very loose goal of making a 30-minute presentation each sharing their perspective of neurofeedback’s past, present and future. It ranged from a photo slide show of other pioneers and colleagues highlighting landmark achievements, presentation of data and studies to simple story telling about our field and accomplishments.
With last year’s first special panel seating over 250 attendees you won’t want to miss the event this year. Our special panel presenters will be Elsa Baehr, Joe Kamiya and Juri Kropotov. These individuals all have unique histories in the field of neurofeedback and each have changed our history and guided our future through their work. Make your plans to include the Wednesday night reception and attendance at the special panel, “Neurofeedback: the Past, Present and Future”.
Come take part in this new tradition of wisdom sharing by the highest regarded members of our field. You won’t find an experience like this anywhere other than ISNR.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
The International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR) is pleased to announce that Juri Kropotov, Ph.D. will be an Invited Speaker at the 17th Annual ISNR Conference in September.
Dr. Kropotov graduated from the department of physics of St. Petersburg State University in 1972 with a major in quantum mechanics. In 1975 he defended his Ph.D. theses on “Slow Processes in the Human Brain” at the Institute for Experimental Medicine. In 1985 he was awarded the State Prize of the USSR, the highest award in the former Soviet Union, for his research in the field of human physiology. He was the first to show that the basal ganglia thalamo-cortical circuits of the human brain are involved in cognitive and affective functions. From 1986 to 1992 he developed a mathematical model of the cortex – the canonical cortical module – that was able to explain most of the properties of neurons in the visual cortex.
In 1990s Dr. Kropotov started his research in the field of quantitative EEG and evoked potentials in normal subjects, in ADHD population and in neurological patients to whom intracranial electrodes were implanted for diagnosis and therapy. In 1998 he began using neurofeedback and transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for treatment of ADHD and other brain dysfunctions.
Dr. Kropotov is now Director of the laboratory for neurobiology of action programming at Institute of the Human Brain of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia and Professor II at the Institute of Psychology at Norwegian University for Science and Technology in Trondhem, Norway. For his research he was awarded the Medal of Honor of Russian Federation, the Diploma of the USSR Academy of Sciences for the Highest Achievement (Discovery) in science. He has published more than 180 papers and seven books. For many years he served as an editor of the journal “Human Physiology” of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is a past president of the European Chapter of ISNR and an editor of the Journal of Neurotherapy.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
EARLY REGISTRATION DEADLINE IS AUGUST 4
The early registration deadline for the 17th Annual Conference of the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR) is August 4, 2009. After this date the registration fee increases by $100 so don’t delay and miss this opportunity to register at the reduced rate.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
The International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (ISNR) is pleased to announce that Major League Baseball Star Sean Casey will be a Keynote Speaker at the 17th Annual ISNR Conference next month.
Ten years ago a young major league baseball player, Sean Casey, was in his first season in the big leagues and was hit in the face during Spring Training by a baseball. The crushed orbital socket required very gradual recovery from trauma and included sport psychology consultation.
The history of this player’s career as he developed All-Star hitting and fielding numbers was punctuated by his interest in a variety of sport psychology techniques aimed at high intensity focus and concentration (coined as ‘mental stamina’). Foremost in the effective training model that lead Sean to his success was a regime of training with neurofeedback and interactive metronome at varying intervals over the past six years. Travel and playing schedules together with other distractions made training irregular at best, but the pattern of training segments followed by periods of improved batting performance was remarkable. The case study results were very relevant to Sean and thus he will attend the conference to share with us his overall experience.
Before retiring from Major League Baseball a few months ago, Sean was a Three Time “All Star” while playing for a team (Cincinnati Reds) that never made it to the playoffs during his career with them. The last three years however, he played for two other teams that were contenders for the World Series Ring and his contribution therein was equally stunning. His batting average for Detroit in the 2006 World Series playoffs was .539, which is nearly unheard of and ranked 7th among the great hitters of all time since baseball began. His career batting average was .302 (again a very remarkable statistic) while playing first base under difficult conditions.
Sean may be best known in sports for the fact that he made a sincere connection with every player who crossed first base, his defined location on the field for over ten years. A few years ago Sports Illustrated magazine ran a poll of the players in the game seeking juicy material that could have had either positive or negative implications for the game at a time when the steroid scandal was rampant and the reputation of the game was in jeopardy. Not only was Sean found to be a staunch, undeterred role model for honesty and integrity in the game (no one ever questioned his ethics) but he also was voted by his peers the “Nicest Guy” in baseball (among the 500 active Major League Players who responded to the survey).
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
On September 2nd, 2009, an excellent full day pre-conference symposium will cover the positive results obtained by 7 masters in the field of Neurofeedback, using a variety of Neurofeedback methods combined with other enhancing
modalities. A great learning offer from very experienced Neurofeedback therapists.
In more detail the symposium presents:
1. Dr. Elsa Baehr studied the effectiveness of the pROSHI alone in comparison to its use in conjunction with a special music CD, or CD alone in induction of relaxation. The Z scores and amplitude ratios were evaluated and the Visual analogue scales utilized to assess subjective perception of the depth of relaxation.
2. Dr. Stephen Overcash will present his successful
therapeutic results with traumatized Policemen. He used the pROSHI or Alpha-Stim devices added to Biofeedback modalities and compared their effects on the stress reduction in this population. His conclusion, at this point is that, the use of the pROSHI and Alpha-Stim induced greater reduction in stress,
and greater client satisfaction, than relaxation exercises and Biofeedback alone.
3. Dr. Roxana Vasiliu will present her experience in a case of tetraplegic young man, aphasic with intermittent oculo-motor
paresis and hyper-sialorea, post motorcycle accident, 4 years prior to Neurofeedback. The clinical progress and the symptoms cessation were accelerated by the use of adjunct devices (pROSHI, LENS and Alpha-Stim), and the changes obtained were sustained, even after a half year since the treatment ended.
4. Dr. Liviu Dragomirescu will present a first case of Congenital Nystagmus and amblyopic disorder trained with Neurofeedback in Romania . He was evaluated and
re-evaluated, after 15 consecutive Neurofeedback (NF) sessions on the NF instrument (ROSHI II+/ Bioexplorer). NF training was enhanced by the addition of the NeuroDynamic Activator™ and of some other Biofeedback devices (RESPeRATE and Freeze Framer). The progress was also evaluated through video tapping.
5. Dr. Carolyne Robertson will introduce the audience to the results she obtained in her clinic using a variety of devices in two cases: one autistic case, and a case of extreme addictions.
6. Dr. Victoria Ibric has been using in her practice many adjunct devices for the last 10 years. This presentation will cover the positive outcome obtained in a case of PTSD and subsequent increased performance, using the complete sensory integration method (the Symmetron coupled with the Neurodynamic Activator™, and specific music CD, presented as sound and as vibration-tactile).
7. Dr. Nancy White, assisted by her associate, Dr. Leonard Richards, outlines a multi-modality treatment program with which they have had excellent outcomes so far. They explain the role that qEEG assessment and psychological testing play
in orchestrating a unique patient treatment plan, illustrated with actual cases. They explain the array of adjunctive therapies they use to augment and amplify the several Neurofeedback (NFB) approaches and use actual cases to
show how they figured in improving outcomes.
We know the pre-conference schedule is very rich but we hope you will chose us. CEU’s are offered. Until then, happy summer to all of you.
Conference update posted on behalf of ISNR:
iSNR Special Panel on September 3rd
You are invited to join us at this special Panel, that will bring you news about how national and international therapists are using adjunct therapies in aid of Neurofeedback. The case study presentations are remarkable. We hope you will plan to be with us on September 3rd, 2009, between 7:30 and 9:00PM at the Panel #6- Victoria Ibric (moderator), Lynda Kirk, Stephen Overcash, Roxana Vasiliu – will present “Adjunct Therapies to Neurofeedback – Significant Results Obtained by International Clinicians”.
In more detail:
Dr. Roxana Vasiliu will discuss that the use of adjunct therapies (pROSHI, Alpha-Stim and LENS) associated to Neurofeedback, accelerated the recovery of a young adult with multiple addictions, depression, ADHD and borderline personality.
Lynda Kirk will present results obtained in her clinic combining pROSHI, AlphaStim, and multimodal
BF, that enhanced neurotherapy and speeded up the progress of many difficult clinical cases, including CVA (stroke), PTSD, and age-related cognitive decline.
Dr. Stephen Overcash, who has been working with traumatized (physically and emotionally, PTSD) policemen clients, compared the relaxation and anti-stress effects of the pROSHI versus the Alpha-Stim. He divided the clients into two groups of ten, and treated them for 8-12 weeks with Enhanced, by the
adjunct devices, Biofeedback sessions. The results obtained were statistically analyzed and will be discussed.