Excerpt from “The Science of Concentration”
Neurons firing in synchrony "a bit like getting strangers in one section of a stadium to start clapping in unison, thereby sending a signal that induces people on the other side of the stadium to clap along." Image credit TurboPhoto.
‘Robert Desimone, [is] a neuroscientist at M.I.T. who has been doing experiments somewhat similar to my [distracting] taxicab TV experience. He has been tracking the brain waves of macaque monkeys and humans as they stare at video screens looking for certain flashing patterns.
When something bright or novel flashes, it tends to automatically win the competition for the brain’s attention, but that involuntary bottom-up impulse can be voluntarily overridden through a top-down process that Dr. Desimone calls “biased competition.” He and colleagues have found that neurons in the prefrontal cortex — the brain’s planning center — start oscillating in unison and send signals directing the visual cortex to heed something else.
These oscillations, called gamma waves, are created by neurons’ firing on and off at the same time — a feat of neural coordination a bit like getting strangers in one section of a stadium to start clapping in unison, thereby sending a signal that induces people on the other side of the stadium to clap along. But these signals can have trouble getting through in a noisy environment.
“It takes a lot of your prefrontal brain power to force yourself not to process a strong input like a television commercial,” said Dr. Desimone, the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at M.I.T. “If you’re trying to read a book at the same time, you may not have the resources left to focus on the words.”
Now that neuroscientists have identified the brain’s synchronizing mechanism, they’ve started work on therapies to strengthen attention. In the current issue of Nature, researchers from M.I.T., Penn and Stanford report that they directly induced gamma waves in mice by shining pulses of laser light through tiny optical fibers onto genetically engineered neurons. In the current issue of Neuron, Dr. Desimone and colleagues report progress in using this “optogenetic” technique in monkeys.’
~John Tierney, NY Times
Tribute to Margaret Ayers
Dr. Margaret Ayers was a pioneer in the science of neurofeedback. During her life she successfully treated hundreds of patients who suffered from closed head injuries, learning disabilities, stroke, coma, and disorders such as Autism. After leaving the employ of Dr. Barry Sterman, she developed equipment which gave “real time” digital EEG readings from the brain. This was essential to her work and success in treatment, which rests on the proven ability of the brain to learn to produce some frequencies and to inhibit others. She found that in patients with head trauma and psychological disorders, the brain was producing theta (4 – 7 Hz) frequencies in the area of the damage in phasic spikes or continuously. Individuals were trained to inhibit one frequency, 4 to 7 hertz, and following inhibition, produce 15 to 18 hertz.
She was the first person to open a private clinic specializing in neurofeedback, treating a host of difficult of conditions, from depression to level two coma. My research shows that she kept her office visit charges to around $45 per session, and treatments generally took 24 visits.
Please see her published reports on her clinical success using neurofeedback here: http://www.neuropathways.com/publication.list.html
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