Neurotherapy
Neurotherapy, which includes neurofeedback, is a safe, non-invasive treatment that helps reduce symptoms by restoring flexibility to the brain.
There are many types of neurotherapy, but, in general, neurotherapy works by monitoring the brain's electrical activity using EEG sensors on the scalp and training the brain by providing audiovisual feedback or gentle stimulation.
Neurotherapy has shown to be beneficial for ADHD and attention issues, anxiety, depression, and more.
The scholarly literature suggests that neurofeedback should play a major therapeutic role in many difficult areas. "In my opinion, if any medication had demonstrated such a wide spectrum of efficacy, it would be universally accepted and widely used". "It is a field to be taken seriously by all".
- Frank H. Duffy, M.D., Professor and Pediatric Neurologist at Harvard Medical School
Types of Neurotherapy
At Mind States, we use different types of neurotherapy, but they fall into two general categories: operant conditioning and brain stimulation.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is when the neurotherapy equipment simply observes the brain's activity, waits for the brain to do its job well, and when it does, rewards it.
For example, the brain might be creating too many sleepy brainwaves in a region associated with focus. The equipment monitors the brain, and when those sleepy brainwaves reduce, even if just for a split second, the equipment detects this and immediately provides feedback to the patient. This feedback often happens on a TV screen that the patient is watching. When the brain creates less sleepy brainwaves, the TV screen becomes bright and easy to see and when the brain creates more sleepy brainwaves, the screen dims and becomes harder to see. Over time, the brain learns how to produce less sleepy brainwaves, which results in improved focus.
Brain Stimulation
Another way we use neurotherapy equipment is to stimulate the brain. This type of treatment increases the brain's flexibility by very briefly asking the brain to try new patterns of activity.
The stimulation is extremely gentle and can be thought of as a whisper to the brain. It uses only 3 picowatts of power, or three trillionths of a watt, so the signal is very tiny and cannot be felt whatsoever. However, the signal's power comes from the fact that it is driven by the EEG and results in remarkably near-immediate improvements in symptoms for most people.
