Download Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback
Steele Taylor
www.uvm.edu/~jstaylor/UVM/Neurofeedback.ppt
[email protected]
Part 1:
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What is Neurofeedback?
Overview of the Nervous System
What are Brain Rhythms and What Functions do they Serve?
Tour the Major Bandwidths of the Nervous System
Part 2:
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2.
3.
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5.
Rhythms of the Hippocampus
Beta Training for ADHD and Epilepsy
Alpha /Theta Training for Anxiety and PTSD
Non – Clinical Applications of Neurofeedback
The future of feedback-based therapy
“Feedback therapy demonstrates and exploits
our ability to exert and/or regain volitional
control over aspects of physiology
previously held to be inaccessible to
consciousness”
Biofeeback and Mind-Body Axes
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Autonomic Nervous System
Neuro-Muscular
Neurogenic Analgesia/Hyperalgesia
Neuro-Endocrine
Neuro-Immunological
Will future feedback-based therapies be able to
target the neuro-immunological axes?
Take Home Points
• Neurofeedback is biofeedback for the Central Nervous System
– Targets firing patterns (brain rhythms) and regional blood flow
• Brain rhythms correspond to certain behavioral and cognitive states
• Cortical brain rhythms are detectable non-invasively (EEG)
• As the EEG inclines towards a desired frequency, a rewarding stimulus
is applied
• The stimulus is auditory and/or visual
• Barry Sterman’s Story
Why Neurofeedback?
1. Neurofeedback and Pharmacotherapeutics
1. Accurate and non-invasive monitoring
1. Diagnosis and progress tracking
2. Eliminate adverse effects and toxicities
3. Sustained therapeutic benefit because the healing is
self generated and penetrates core dysfunctions
2. Neurofeedback and Psychotherapy
1. The results are quantifiable
2. Specific targeting of correlated neurological deficits
3. ‘Uncover’ unresolved issues for subsequent processing
during a neurofeedback session
Why Not Neurofeedback?
Neurofeedback Equipment
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Three essential components:
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Input
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Electrodes: EEG / SEMG
Infrared: Regional Cerebral Blood Flow
Functional MRI: Real Time fMRI
Processing Unit
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Filter raw data and amplify
Set to desired bandwidths
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May be general or very specific
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Percentage goals for simultaneously
occurring frequencies
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v27/n1/images/1395884f2.gif
Inhibit Threshold is equivalent to a limbo bar
Reward Threshold is equivalent to a hurdle
Output: The reward must occur at the
appropriate time!
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2.
Auditory Stimuli
Visual Stimuli
http://dreamweaverhouse.org/images/brain_man.gif
What Is Required of Neuronal
Information Processing?
• Recognize Patterns and Synthesize (Bind) Inputs
Across Multiple Sensory Modalities
• Anticipate Future Events on Multiple Time Scales
– Position Awareness in Context of Past and Future
• Generate, Refine, and Execute Motor Programs
• Store and Retrieve Memories
• Do all of this efficiently!
(space and metabolic restrictions)
How Can Oscillations Make These Possible?
Nervous System Overview
www.doctordeluca.com/Library/Pain/CP1NewDisease2K.htm
http://domino.watson.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/rscd.neurons_picd.html/$FILE/
Three%20Golden%20Columns_s.bmp
http://www.dorlingkindersleyuk.co.uk/static/clipart/uk/dk/exp_humanbody/exp_human042.
jpg
http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/workbook67/yinyang_13.png
Blue = Yin = Calm = Inhibition
Red = Yang = Arouse = Excitation
Classic Model of Information Flow
Input
Processing
Output
(afferent)
(interneurons)
(efferent)
Somatic Sensory
Triune Processing Centers:
Somatic Motor
Special Sensory
1. Cerebrum (cortex)
Visceral Motor
Visceral Sensory
2. Limbic System
Glandular Secretions
3. Spinal Cord and
Brainstem
Modifications to the Classic Model
1. The brain generates its own default organized
activity that it inevitably reverts towards
1. Meaning that it is not bound to environmental stimuli
2. The brain emulates reality versus simply
translating reality
3. Sensation Requires Movement
“No perception without action”
Functional Localizations in the CNS
http://www.laesieworks.com/spinal/pict/SpinalCord.jpg
http://www.colorado.edu/intphys/Class/IPHY3730/image/figure5-8.jpg
http://img.sparknotes.com/figures/8/865bcf35b080d38c5465f4c2dbe
a8f0d/brainstem.gif
http://www.morphonix.com/software/education/science/brai
n/game/specimens/images/wet_brain.gif
http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/left-brain-right-brain.jpg
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Neurovascular_coupling
http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol12/issue3/images/mediu
m/coverfig.gif
http://www.alzheimer.ca/english/alzheimer_brain_mini_site/images/02a.jpg
http://cortivis.umh.es/Images/fmri_blind.jpg
The Thalamus
• Gateway to the cortex
• Filter of Sensory Data
• Arousal Regulator
http://mri.kennedykrieger.org/images/[email protected]
• Cortical Pacemaker?
– Equidistance from
cortical structures would
overcome lag times in
communication
http://alpha.furman.edu/~einstein/general/neurodemo/105C.gif
The Hippocampus
• Librarian of the Brain!
• “Navigation” of external
space and internal
memory space
– Place Cells
– Episodic/Declarative
• Storage
• Retrieval
• Hippocampal Theta
– Lays ground for transient
cell-assemblies
– Lays ground for long-termpotentiation
http://www.brainconnection.com/med/medart/l/hippocampus.jpg
“Neurons that fire together, wire together.”
Oscillations Are Embedded in Our
Inner and Outer Environments
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Day / Night
Lunar Cycles
Seasonal Cycles
Predator - Prey
Yearly Cycles
Samsara!
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Heart Rate
Respiratory Cycles
Brain Rhythms
Rhythmic Movement
Voice Generation
Daily Mood and
Attention Flux
• Sleep / Wake
• Cellular Secretions
Oscillation
• Oscillations are back and forth rhythmic variations
across an equilibrium point
• 1. Harmonic Oscillators
• 2. Relaxation Oscillators
– Charge
– Discharge
– Refraction
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7e/Pacemaker_potential.svg/354pxPacemaker_potential.svg.png
http://www.xaraxone.com/webxealot/workbook67/yinyang_13.png
Blue = Yin = Calm = Inhibition
Red = Yang = Arouse = Excitation
http://www.heart-valve-surgery.com/Images/cardiac-conduction-system.jpg
Oscillations Help Satisfy the Requirements of
the Nervous System
1. Synchronize distant regions through
pacemaking
2. Conserve energy because less energy
expenditure required to ‘charge’ downstream
targets with yang
3. Conserve space by allowing neurons to
participate in multiple circuits
– Based on activity of channels
– Based on synchrony with other neurons
4. Code and retrieve information in spatiotemporal sequences and auto-associations
5. Glue or bind multiple processing regions to
form gestalt perceptions
– Coupling gamma to hippocampal theta
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Lena_River_Delta__Landsat_2000.jpg/300px-Lena_River_Delta_-_Landsat_2000.jpg
Paths of Least Resistance
http://domino.watson.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/rscd.neurons_picd.html/$FILE/
Three%20Golden%20Columns_s.bmp
http://www.biogetic.com/img/eeg2.gif
“Neuronal ensemble activities shuttle back
and forth between the interference
prone complexity and robust predictable
oscillatory synchrony…
“…this switching behavior is the most
efficient way for the brain to detect
changes in the body and the
surrounding physical world, while
preserving its autonomous internal
organization.”
-Gyorgy Buzsaki Rhythms of the Brain
Slow Waves: Robust Predictable Oscillatory Synchrony
• Slow wave activity is the default mode of the
brain, and enables a noise-free-circuit
– This allows experiences to be replayed, consolidated,
and integrated with pre-existing internal models
– Synaptic connections are strengthened and remodeled
• During slow wave activity, the brain temporarily
disables the process of being continually tossed
about by external stimuli
Slow Waves: Robust Predictable Oscillatory Synchrony
• Delta: 1-3 Hz
– Deep Sleep, Repair,
Problem Solving
(wake up with the answer!)
– Reduced
responsiveness to
sensory perturbations
– Predominates during
infancy as connectivity is
still weak
• Theta: 4-7 Hz
– Sleep-wake transitions
• Hypnagogic hallucinations
• Hypnapompic hallucinations
– Creativity, Insight,
– Uncritical acceptance,
self-correcting thoughts
– Altered States,
– Super-learning in young
children
– Slow wave disorders:
foggy thinking, epilepsy,
ADHD, coma
Alpha and SMR: Bridging Internal Operations with
External Stimuli
• Alpha: 8-12 Hz
– Calm Alertness, Meditation, Body Awareness,
Daydreaming
– ‘Reduced during eye movements
– More dominant posteriorly, however, years of
meditation promotes spread to the pre-frontal
cortex…neurofeedback can hasten this process
• Coherence, reflection, attunement, integrative thinking
• Bottom-Up Processing
• Resolution of cognitive dissonance
• Sensory Motor Rhythm (SMR) or Mu
– 10-15 Hz within sensory-motor strip
– Physically Relaxed, Poised for Action, Calm Vigilance
Faster Waves: Interference Prone
Complexity
• Beta: 13-20 Hz
– Focused Thought, Sustained Attention,
Industrious Behavior
– Characteristics of motor cortices actively
engaged in directing movement
– Brain is desynchronized due to attending to
variety of tasks
• High Beta : 21-30 Hz
– Hyperalertness, Anxiety…especially if right
beta exceeds left beta
Faster Waves: Interference Prone
Complexity
• Gamma
– 30-80Hz
– Tend to be transient bursts of cognitive activity
• Sustained long enough for a subjective experience
– Equivalent to the ‘AHA’ moment
– Perfect frequency to enable long-term potentiation
– Perfect frequency for construction and recall of cell
assemblies = binding
– Often deficient in learning disorders and mental retardation
How to Access These States:
1. Delta: Get some nice sleep,
2. Theta: Sustain the period before falling asleep
(Edison style!), imagine passively flowing
through a warm viscous medium
3. Alpha: Pay attention to your breath, continually
scan your body
4. SMR: Play a sport such as baseball, tennis
5. Low Beta: Play penguin pursuit and color match
on lumosity.com, read a book attentively (w/
speed-read eye-movements), juggle
6. High Beta: Hike in the dark…note your response
to sudden unknown sounds! Panic, obsess.
7. Gamma: Do puzzles, play moneycomb, memory
matrix on lumosity.com
Alpha / Theta Training
1. PTSD, Anxiety, Depression, Rage,
Addiction, BDD and Anorexia?
– Trauma and long-standing anxiety can lead to
limbic ‘locking’ with accompanying reductions
in pre-frontal lobe processing
– Goal is to ‘unlock’ the dominant limbic circuits
to restore normal information flow and
processing between limbic + cortex
– Enables resolution of long standing trauma
» Described as witnessing the events versus
experiencing them vividly and emotionally
– Therapeutic benefit rests in the self-corrective intuitive
thinking that emerges, however often vivid imagery also
accompanies this state
Alpha / Theta Training
– Non-Clinical Applications:
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Creativity and Inventiveness
Insight
Experiential Learning
Performance
Shamans
Training Beta
2. Beta Training: ADHD
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Biochemical Etiology:
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Benefits of medication are typically medication dependant, and
may not generate actually physiological alterations
Possible underlying deficiencies in cholinergic signaling
Electroencephalic Correlates:
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Reduced dopaminergic and noradrenergic innervation of
cognitive, attentive and reward centers
Stimulus seeking behavior is sought out
Inappropriate cortical slow wave (theta = alpha) dominance
during cognitive activities
Poor SMR
Neurofeedback Protocol:
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Reward beta, particularly left hemispheric and SMR
Training Beta
2. Epilepsy
• Invasion of slow (3Hz) and strongly
synchronous activity throughout the cortex
• Can be partial (absence), or widespread
– Strengthen cortical low beta
– Strengthen SMR
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Net effect is to enhance the seizure threshold
Barry Sterman did this with cats!
Training Beta
2. Performance
• Athletes
• Musicians
• Speakers/Politicians
• Medical Professionals
The Future of Feedback Medicine
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Real-Time Functional MRI (fMRI)
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Christopher DeCharms project
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Participant can observe functional MRI in real time to alter their
neurological activity
Based on known structure-function relationships in the brain
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Immediate applications are for chronic pain management, but the
possibilities are endless
Useful for assessing vegetative status
Versus Neurofeedback: Poor temporal resolution, good spatial
resolution
http://futurefeeder.com/wp-content/IImages/fMRI.jpg
The Future of Feedback Medicine
2. VTI of Neurophysiological Excellence
1. Real-time monitoring of biochemical markers
and rewarding of favorable shifts as patient
engages in a virtual reality game
Further Reading
• Demos, John. Getting Started With
Neurofeedback. 2005
• Robbins, Jim. A Symphony in the Brain. 2000
• Buzsaki, Gyorgy. Rhythms of the Brain. 2006
• Llinas, Rudolfo. I of the Vortex: From Neurons to
Self. 2002
• Ramachandran, V.S. A Brief Tour of Human
Consciousness. 2004
• Schwartz MS and Andrasik F (editors).
Biofeedback: A Practitioner’s Guide. 2003
• Castaneda, Carlos. The Art of Dreaming.
Websites
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www.neurocybernetics.com
www.heartmath.com
www.omneuron.com
www.lumosity.com
• http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/christopher_decharms_scans_th
e_brain_in_real_time.html
Neurofeedback
Steele Taylor
www.uvm.edu/~jstaylor/UVM/Neurofeedback.ppt
[email protected]