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Accidents Will Happen: Neurofeedback and TBI

If you think about it, it’s clearly a serious design flaw. When is it a good idea to put something the consistency of flan in a hard shell, and then attach it to a fistful of bungie-cords. And what happens when this precarious design hits a wall? That’s the mess you’re in for when a person experiences a traumatic brain injury or TBI. The flan (brain) whips around on the end of the bungie-cord (neck) torqueing the...

No One is an Island: Brain Training and Family Systems

We’ve always known that life is a system, that humans live in social systems. Greeks personified bits of human personality, then used relationships between those bits as a way of understanding behavior. Why there were heroes and villains. Why some people were just regular guys, unmotivated by mythic forces. Medieval thinkers imagined a psychomachia, little people embodying virtues and vices, who battled literally, inside a person’s body. (more…)

Defending Your Castle: Building Cognitive Reserve with Neurofeedback

So, three castles: the first is built of stone on the traditional model. Same slits for arrows, a little crenellation and a nice moat with ducks. A contingent of serfs and knights, sitting around eating turkey legs and repeating the jester’s jokes. Badly. Second castle’s really big, heavy with redundancies. Two moats, a couple of extra walls. Still on the traditional model, just more of everything.  Third castle? Same. Except it’s clearly cleverer. Someone’s an...

Neurofeedback for Autism: Brain Training Perspectives from Dr. Lise DeLong

Dr. Lise Delong is a Neuroptimal trainer based in Walnut Creek, California who has done ground-breaking research using neurofeeback for autism. As it stands, neurofeedback is one of the few effective natural remedies for ADHD and autism. Founder and Director of Cognitive Connections, she uses neurofeedback as a primary tool to help children struggling with ADD, ADHD, autism, Central Processing Disorder and other challenging neurological disorders. NeurOptimal® Neurofeedback sat down with Dr. DeLong recently to discuss the recent...

NeurOptimal®‘s Neurofeedback Conference: An Award-Worthy Sequel

It's Oscar night. How many sequels do you see up for serious awards, you know: actor, director, best picture? The answer would be uh, zero. Why? Because it's very difficult to duplicate a vital, initial spark of creativity and the box office success that follows. Not because the good folks in Hollywood don't try, but at some point, expansion upon the same idea just isn't all that interesting, creative...or award-worthy. (more…)

Acting More Like A Monk May Save You From Cognitive Impairment In Old Age

Who would have guessed that monks were keen cerebral strategists against aging and cognitive impairment?  As a way to keep their minds sharp amidst requisite isolation, medieval monks often stored memories in so called “memory-houses” they “built” inside their brains. They furnished each “room” with a kind of memory and when they wanted to retrieve it, they mentally walked themselves to the right room and got what they needed. In effect, they created about a geography...

Why Neurofeedback Is Like A Superhero That Slays Insomnia

Let’s say you’re the world’s worst farmer. You have a gigantic stable. You have, conservatively speaking, a billion cows. You don’t clean the stable for thirty years. Thirty. Years. Who do you call? Hercules, of course. And Hercules has to help. As half-God, half-human, he’s constantly screwing up. He must atone. So he dams a river, digs some trenches, lets the water loose in the building to wash all the gunk away. Sparkling clean it was, after...

Avoid Resolution Epic Fail with Brain Training in 2014

Optimism. It's a holiday tradition. Sure, we took our knocks the previous year.  OK -mea culpa - we made some missteps in the previous twelve months. But now, 2014 is in our sites and burns bright with possibilities. We've come to approach this annual calendar page-turning as an opportunity for human revolution in the midst of overcoming our (literal and figurative) hangover from the previous year. But According to a University of Scranton study, only 39%...