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I used to think of bio-feedback as a relic of the flaky 1970s.
That was before I met Jake Flaherty. Born in 1990, Jake
was an infant in crisis: he arrived more than three months
before his due date and weighed just over a pound. At 3
days he required open-heart surgery. He spent the first
two months of his life in intensive care. He survived, but
with serious damage to his brain. At the age of 7, when I
met him, he was taking Depakote and Tegretol to control
his epileptic seizures and lacked the coordination to tie his
shoes. He had speech and attention problems, ground his
teeth incessantly and often woke up 10 or 11 times during
the night.
Three years ago Jake’s parents sought out a clinic offering
neurofeedback, a form of biofeedback that involves
displaying a person’s brain waves on a computer screen
and helping him control them. Jake would sit at a monitor
with a sensor on his scalp, and whenever his brain
achieved the calm, steady rhythms that normally eluded
him, a Pac-Man would start gobbling black dots and
beeping. Soon he was controlling the screen action at will,
by recognizing the way it feels when the Pac-Man goes to
work--and his brain was growing more stable. "It took care
of his teeth grinding in two sessions," says his mother. "It
took care of his sleep problems right away." Within a week
Jake was using scissors and developing a range of other
fine motor skills. The number of seizures dropped. His
schoolwork improved dramatically. Several years later he
still has some problems, but his parents say he has gained
far more than they dared to dream.
Though biofeedback is best known as a stress-reduction
exercise, researchers in private clinics, universities and
even NASA are now working to refine the type that deals
with brain waves. The technology is still in its infancy, but
it’s emerging as a tool to treat everything from epilepsy
and attention-deficit disorder to migraines, anxiety,
depression, head injuries, sleep disorders and even
addiction. In the last few years, neurofeedback has made
its way into the offices of hundreds of reputable doctors,
psychologists and counselors. No one knows exactly how
the technique helps people, but recent research shows the
brain is far more "plastic," or changeable, than previously
imagined. Some experts believe that regular brain-wave
training improves blood flow to particular brain regions,
fostering stronger connections between cells. And after 20
or 30 sessions, the changes seem to last.
Some health experts dismiss the treatment as a fad,
suspecting it’s just a high-tech placebo. They question the
wisdom of spending thousands of dollars to try something
so unproven. "Parents need to be fully informed about the
lack of research," says Russell Barkley, a researcher at
the University of Massachusetts Medical School and a
leading expert on attention-deficit disorder. Proponents counter that since
neurofeedback carries no risks--and has been used
successfully by thousands of people--there is no reason to
suppress it until costly clinical trials can be performed. Joel
Lubar, a University of Tennessee psychologist who has
spent three decades studying ADD and treating it with
neurofeedback, claims that more than 90 percent of his
patients have benefited. Combined with family therapy and
a supportive school environment, the technique has
reduced and in many cases eliminated the need for
medications such as Ritalin.
Start your search with a licensed professional, such as a
psychologist or pediatrician, who is familiar with the
technique and can give you a referral. If you find a
practitioner by some other route, you should find out how long the person has been in business.
Understanding neurofeedback, and maximizing its
benefits, will require years of research, but the future looks
bright. "I feel like someone has given us a piano and we’ve
learned to play a couple of keys," says Sue Othmer,
executive director of EEG Spectrum. For people like Jake,
those few keys are already a symphony.
Robbins is a freelance science writer based in Helena,
Mont. His most recent book is "A Symphony in the Brain:
The Evolution of the New Brain Wave Biofeedback,"
published by Atlantic Monthly Press.
- Reprinted with permission. -
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