February 2006 Issue:
Train Your Brain – Mental exercises with neurofeedback may ease symptoms of attention-deficit disorder, epilepsy and depression–and even boost cognition in healthy brains.
By Ulrich Kraft
At first the computer game looks awfully easy for an eight-year-old–like something out of the Stone Age of arcades in the 1980s. A red triangle “arrow” appears on the monitor’s blue screen, and then the nose of a cartoon airplane glides into view from the left. If the arrow points upward, Ben must make the plane climb. When he succeeds, a spiky yellow sun beams.
A second glance shows that all is not as it seems. For one thing, Ben has no joystick. Instead several electrodes glued to the boy’s face and to the skin under his hair let him pilot the plane by thought alone. Such “mind reading” offers many possible applications. It has, for instance, enabled “locked-in” patients–who cannot speak or gesture–to communicate with caregivers [see “Thinking Out Loud,” by Nicola Neumann and Niels Birbaumer; Scientific American Mind, Premier Issue, Vol. 14, No. 5, 2004].
By controlling their brain waves, the patients manipulate letters and words on a computer screen. Practice with neurofeedback may also benefit those who suffer from epilepsy, attention deficits, depression and other debilitating mental disorders. The experimental therapy, also called EEG biofeedback, may even help rev up healthy brains, improving cognitive performance….
Read the full article here: http://www.neurofeedback.org/images/Scientific_American_Mind_Train_Your_Brain_02_06.doc