Brain Wave

Moving posterior: Doc changes my neurofeedback set-up; calm ensues

The doc was happy with my progress with neurofeedback. I have reduced my A.D.D. He put it in terms of microvolts -- I reduced certain brain waves by so many microvolts.

So the doc thought it was a good time to begin addressing anxiety.

With A.D.D., the problem is too much of a certain type of slow electrical activity in the front of the brain.

With anxiety, the problem is too much of a certain type of fast electrical activity in the back of the brain.

To begin addressing anxiety today, the doc moved the scalp sensor to the back of the top of my head.

(Neurofeedback, at least with the system our doc uses, involves two clips on ear lobes and one on the head, attached with a conductive gel. The lines are connected to a computer, and the activity of the brain influences what the patient sees on the screen of a computer or television set.)

On screen was a new video game-like image. My task was to relax enough to fire a space ship through colorful, patterned tubes, like a futuristic flight through a fancy sewer pipe or utility passage, like something out of Star Wars.

If my relaxation lagged, the ship slowed down. If I continued to tense back up, the ship stopped. If I still didn't manage to relax, the screen went black. I could regain the screen and the space ship and forward motion once I returned myself to a relaxed state.

I almost fell asleep a couple of times. Perhaps that's part of my problem -- I don't know how to relax unless I completely konk-out.

Despite the drowsiness, I felt incredibly calm and happy as I left the office.

I guess this posterior move is working.

-Colin Foote Burch

Dyslexia: It's not your brain, it's your language, new research reveals

From an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal:

Studies of schoolchildren who read in varying alphabets and characters suggest that those who are dyslexic in one language, say Chinese or English, may not be in another, such as Italian.

Dyslexia, in which the mind scrambles letters or stumbles over text, is twice as prevalent in the U.S., where it affects about 10 million children, as in Italy, where the written word more closely corresponds to its spoken sound. "Dyslexia exists only because we invented reading," said Tufts University cognitive neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf, author of "Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain."

Among children raised to read and write Chinese, the demands of reading draw on parts of the brain untouched by the English alphabet, new neuroimaging studies reveal. It's the same with dyslexia, psychologist Li Hai Tan at Hong Kong Research University and his colleagues reported last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The problems occur in areas not involved in reading other alphabets....

"In this sense, we may regard dyslexia in Chinese and English as two different brain disorders," Dr. Tan said, "because completely different brain regions are disrupted. It's very likely that a person who is dyslexic in Chinese would not be dyslexic in English."

Read the full article here (a subscription might be required).