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The Center for Neurofunctiong works with the symptoms of central nervous system dysfunction of many kinds. The primary outcomes of our work since 1991 are to make life clearer, easier, and less painful. Increases in clarity occur in those with problems of cognitive functioning include becoming increasingly discriminant, be able to take in information, be more discerning about internal experience, to sequence, prioritize, and organize better, to remember more easily, and to do more than one thing at a time. Ease of functioning occurs with increases in being assertive, initiating activities, staying with a task, quitting a task as planned to move on to something else, managing emotions, being awake during the day, and falling and remaining asleep at night. Ease also increases because energy is more abundant. Energy is more available because less effort is needed to focus and maintain control, releasing the person from the excess overhead needed for ordinary activities. Energy is also more available when pain is significantly reduced. At the same time, depression lifts. Pain
reduces for two reasons. First, the brain appears to be better able
to tell the difference between pain signals from the body and ordinary
body sensation. Trauma often scrambles the brain’s ability
to recognize ordinary sensation as simply ordinary sensation. Instead
it thinks ordinary sensations are pain signals. Second, the brain
also cannot tell the difference between signals from different places
in the body. It thinks signals from one place are really from another.
In the first instance, the brain confuses the type of signals, that
is, ordinary sensation and pain sensation; in the second case, it
confuses signals from different places.
Procedures
Used Session length is about a 45 minutes, and the typical exposure to the feedback is between one and seven seconds a week – although those few seconds occur while the EEG is monitored and examined for a considerably longer time. The Bales Scientific Photonic Stimulator, which provides infrared light, is also used as part of the peripheral pain treatment program.
In addition, high-resolution digital imaging is also available to make visible neurovascular patterns underlying chronic pain, such as the following picture of a person’s back. The person has chronic back pain.
Individual half- to three-quarter-hour sessions of neurofeedback or biofeedback sessions may be provided. Psychotherapy sessions are generally scheduled for a 2-hour session. The
Evaluation
The next graph shows the same activity in bar graph form. Each bar represents the Delta brain wave amplitude and variability at each place on the scalp from which the brain waves are recorded. The importance of the third graph is that it tells the order in which each area on the scalp is to be used to guide the feedback.
We work with each site from shortest bars, first, proceeding to the highest bars last. The lowest bars represent where brain functioning is best. Thus the treatment works with the strength of the brain, helping it to work and communicate better with itself. We then use the information in the third graph evaluate different a variety of settings, which can help make this approach more efficient, and potentially reduce the time and expense of treatment
Finally, the fourth graph, is an evaluation that helps document actual change in the brain waves using this approach. The lowering the purple and plum-colored bars below shows the amplitudes of the brain waves diminishing. This reflects increasing functionality of the cerebral cortex to quiet the unnecessary activity of the brain
What
the Change Process Is Like |
