Neurofeedback training in action
In neurofeedback training, EEG sensors pick up your brain’s electrical activity and the computer compares it to the targets or goals for brain change. Then you get immediate feedback – sounds and images on the computer monitor that tell you when your brain reaches your targets and when you do not. So you receive continuous hints that allow your brain to learn and to change over time. In this video, you will see and hear the feedback provided by one videogame style neurofeedback training system. Take a look.
Neuroplasticity explained
Neurofeedback training makes use of the brain’s amazing capacity for change – its ability to reshape how it works to help us meet the challenges we face. This well documented ability is called neuroplasticity.
Although we are all born with “hard wiring” – networks of neurons and connecting fibers – our brains are constantly being shaped by experience. Repeated experience results in increased connections among neurons and in greater strength in the existing connections. These small changes, frequently enough repeated, lead to changes in how our brains work. Many university studies have shown that it is possible to change brain activity patterns through feedback guided learning.
Neurofeedback training is easy. Monkeys can do it.
Video courtesy of Dr Ingrid Philippens, BPRC, the Netherlands.
To do neurofeedback training, all you have to do is pay attention to the feedback, be pleased when your brain is successful and meets the brain training goals, and allow your brain to learn. Like all learning, it takes time and practice, so you need to be patient. This video shows a marmoset monkey doing neurofeedback. A piece of popcorn drops into his cage whenever his brain activity meets the target. The results at the end show his learning. The monkey doesn’t know he is changing his brain. He is just glad when he gets popcorn. His brain figures out what to do to get more popcorn.
If a monkey can do it, so can you!
Drawings Tell the Story
All experts agree: kids’ drawings reveal a lot about them, about their level of development. A boy with ADHD did each of these family drawings. Judging from the drawings, most people guess that several years passed between the first and third. But the dramatic changes you can see here took place in just three months after 40 neurofeedback sessions. Neurofeedback accelerates development.
