A biofeedback device - recording my scarce brainwaves
John Bond
Posts: 369
I have two questions
How are brainwaves measured in biofeedback devices? Can a home constructor make such a device?
How difficult is it to modulate stereo headphones to produce an underlying frequency variable between 4 and 15 hertz (to influence brainwaves). I think the modulation·are two·sine waves, 180 degrees out of phase, one·sine wave·attenuate each headphone.
·
I suffer from bipolar depression. I am ADD/ADHD and more than 60% of ADHD adults develop depression. There is ample research to show that people suffering from both depression and ADHD use their brains differently to normal people and this produces the lower frequency Theta brain waves rather than the higher frequency Alpha waves.
·
Currently, the fashionable treatment for both depression and ADHD is biofeedback. You measure the brainwaves (using a cap with about a dozen sensors). Frequencies range from about 1.5 Hz to 40 Hz
Delta – 1.5 to 4 Hz = Sleeping
Theta – 4 to 8 Hz = Dreamy or meditative state
Low Alpha – 8 to 10 = Peaceful and contemplative
High Alpha – 10 to 15 = Wide awake and alert
Beta – 15 to 40 = Agitated and jumpy
·
Some practitioners also provide music, usually Mozart that modulates between left and right at about 10 hertz.
·
Kind regards from Kwa Dukuza on the dark continent - Africa
John Bond
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
How are brainwaves measured in biofeedback devices? Can a home constructor make such a device?
How difficult is it to modulate stereo headphones to produce an underlying frequency variable between 4 and 15 hertz (to influence brainwaves). I think the modulation·are two·sine waves, 180 degrees out of phase, one·sine wave·attenuate each headphone.
·
I suffer from bipolar depression. I am ADD/ADHD and more than 60% of ADHD adults develop depression. There is ample research to show that people suffering from both depression and ADHD use their brains differently to normal people and this produces the lower frequency Theta brain waves rather than the higher frequency Alpha waves.
·
Currently, the fashionable treatment for both depression and ADHD is biofeedback. You measure the brainwaves (using a cap with about a dozen sensors). Frequencies range from about 1.5 Hz to 40 Hz
Delta – 1.5 to 4 Hz = Sleeping
Theta – 4 to 8 Hz = Dreamy or meditative state
Low Alpha – 8 to 10 = Peaceful and contemplative
High Alpha – 10 to 15 = Wide awake and alert
Beta – 15 to 40 = Agitated and jumpy
·
Some practitioners also provide music, usually Mozart that modulates between left and right at about 10 hertz.
·
Kind regards from Kwa Dukuza on the dark continent - Africa
John Bond
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Comments
www.bwgen.com/download.htm
This software is free to try, and $40 to purchase.
If you're interested in measuring brain waves, you need an EEG machine. There's currently an open source project concerning EEG machines:
openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
-Paul
Kind regards
John
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
It is true that external fields can be entrained by the brain, and theoretically such fields can be used for therapeutic purposes. But what you have to remember is that the body is highly auto-regulatory... most of what we might do to perturb the body's regulation would tend to disturb it. Depression is a cyclical process. Many people who seek help are already beginning to cycle out of the depressive state, so no matter what the clinician does, it seems to work... at first.
Historically, one of the effects of rural electrification was to increase the incidence of some regulatory disease by as much as fifty percent.
In the early 1990's I held a series of meetings to study the possibility of using MRI to treat regulatory problems. Following this, one of our participants, Frank Prato, PhD (a highly respected Canadian investigator) held a meeting, in which data was presented to show that such fields could affect a wide range of medical problems... from depression to type II diabetes. So, there is nothing wrong with your basic idea.
Your area is now electrified most of the time... the question I would have is what effect are environmental fields having on you? The experts that I have talked to suggest two ways to study this... build a Faraday cage around your sleeping quarters or impose a large static magnetic field in your living area(which, in theory, tends to saturate the biochemical mechanisms).
Multiple studies have shown that typical cell phone EM fields change brain blood flow in the area of the brain responsible for integration and emotion... so, limiting your time on the phone and moving the cell phone's antennae away from your head is also a good idea.
There is a thread on the Propeller forum for building an EEG with a Propeller[noparse]:)[/noparse]
The answer to your second question is "yes." If you are smart enough to ask the question... it is a matter of time before you could also answer that question. I would strongly recommend that you start to follow the Propeller threads... and search back through them. The Propeller seems somewhat imposing, but with a small effort there is a great reward.
Regards,
Rich
Post Edited (rjo_) : 3/17/2009 1:45:10 PM GMT
·
Thanks for the pointer for the Prop thread on EEG. I’ll get a Prop with my next order.
·
I've been in a normal (not depressed) state for about 5 months. I'll have another episode sometime. I’ve studied and tried most of the conventional interventions for depression. A technique called CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Technique) works most of the time. I back this up with Lithium or Epilim (an epileptic drug) but I don’t like the side effects much.
·
Yes, I’d heard of the interference electricity causes to mental processes. I also met a family who lived under 110 KV power lines and suffered bad stress. Because I come from a fairly well off (by African standards) family, we’ve had electricity all of my life. There was a brief period when this was a Cummings Generator but otherwise, very well regulated 50 Hertz 220/230 Volt town supply. South Africa’s electricity was used to provide timing signals for our telephones, our mines, our clocks and even maritime radios. The Electricity Supply Commission guaranteed 30 seconds in 24 hours and 2 minutes a week, not bad in the 1970’s. ·I am lucky now because there is no electricity round except in my house. It would be easy to isolate my bedroom. Use a 12 volt switching circuit to activate the 230 power.
·
Your comments on cell phones are interesting, we had a criminal case in 2006 where a service provider mounted a base station aerial on a building and the aerial pointed directly into another office.· The radiation was well above safe levels.
·
I am amazed at how much I’ve learned about entraining and EEG in the past 12 hours. Powerful stuff. Now to see if it works.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
wake from a dead sleep whenever the power goes out
able to tell when a tube tv is on when muted even from another room
can usually tell when my cellphone is about to ring
ADHD and high tension lines, fun!
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Parallax Forums - If you're ready to learn, we're ready to help.
I wanted to comment in this thread so as not to clog up Ken's.
I am apolitical... to the point of not voting. Whoever wins the election has my sympathy and assistance. It seems to me that if we want a functioning government, we must first be governable.
SA is home for you... it will always be home. Far better to stay home than to seek social justice elsewhere. But you might find it far easier to do business in EA than in SA[noparse]:)[/noparse]. Chinese engineering firms are doing very well. The key seems to be that they are honest and don't try to bribe people to get the work.
We have something called affirmative action, which gives preference to minorities. How it is implemented is on a State by State basis. But a few years ago, getting hired in California for a European was very similar to getting hired in SA.
What stimulated this was the economic state of our minorities. The communities were (and remain) under tremendous economic pressure.
Entrainment works. If you read Russian, there is much more in the Russian literature than in European literature.
I have searched for the thread in the Propeller forum and can't find it, but if you just watch the forum, it will pop up again. Most of what you will find in authentic science sources tends to be under-reported because of the potential for abuse.
There is also a public EEG project somewhere on the web... so getting a good handle on what you need to do is pretty easy.
Regards,
Rich
About lithium side effects... and again... the Propeller has a role to play here.
One of the guys who invented MRI had a relative (through marriage) who had bipolar disease. This fellow was a physical chemist, so naturally he approached things through physical chemistry. In studying his relative and a number of others, he found that manic episodes were always preceded by a drop in serum lithium levels... these people were not being treated with lithium at the time.
So, in theory, with careful monitoring one can tell when a manic episode is about to occur. This would allow one to use lithium treatment selectively... rather than chronically... as is the current practice. The other thing that you would get from this technical capacity is the ability to establish what serum levels of lithium (during treatment) are required in order to abort an attack. This probably varies from person to person and from time to time.
The net result: much less treatment...much less often, with much better results[noparse]:)[/noparse]
How does this relate to the Propeller?
Serum lithium levels can be measured using mass spectroscopy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_spectrometry
look at the gas chromatograph... there are broken units like this at every university.
At the heart of your system... there should be a Propeller.
This is also an interesting article, which discusses dietary lithium and serum measurements here:
http://www.39kf.com/cooperate/qk/American-Society-for-Nutrition/017301/2008-12-28-549809.shtml
Rich
Thanks for those leads, both very interesting.
As you point out, excessive lithium concentrations in the body can be a bit nasty. Lithium is my drug of choice and I send my blood off to Durban every four to six months to check lithium levels. It's always too low but I still get the therapeutic benefit. (Make myself a pocket lithium tester???)
CJ
There is a growing consensus that ADHD is increasing dramatically among humanity. Many people including me think it is part of human evolution. The gene DRD4-7 is a marker for ADHD, particularly if you have the 120 sequence. I would wager a bet that half the people using this forum have the DRD4-7 gene. It's only found in 3% to 5% of the general population.
Some people call you guys the Indigo Children, a new subspecies of mankind though there's no scientific basis for this.
There is scientific proof that ADHD people (usually men) are mentally vastly different to the normal vanilla brand of humanity.
Positive traits
- You’re creative
- You can use both hemispheres of your brain
- You think out the box
- You’re spontaneous
- You are amazing problem solvers.
- You are intuitive
- You are the only people to see the whole picture
Negative traits
- You can seem remote or spaced out
- You are called “The Jumpies” because you can't sit still
- You tend to be more emotional
- You have a lower anger threshold
- You can get depressed more easily.
- In severe cases (like mine), there can be psychotic baggage
ADHD is sometimes referred to as Gods terrible gift yet few of us would give it up to be a vanilla human.
If you want your ego stroked, look at this site. I’ve read the book but I don’t know if his techniques work.
http://www.davincimethod.com/
John Bond
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
An interesting bit of research (that I can’t find right now) shows that ADHD men choose wives from families that have ADHD. We deliberately pass this difficulty on to our children!!! If Darwin was right, this has interesting implications concerning evolution. Does the world really need lots more ADHD people? Apparently so…
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
About heredity...
After radiation to my neck, I developed a form of narcolepsy, which left me sleeping about 20 hours a day. That plus some difficulty moving my
foot led me and my neurologist to that conclusion that I had experienced microscopic injuries to my brain stem and spinal cord. I was placed on a medicine called "Provigil," which completely resolved my narcolepsy but left me with the mirror opposite of ADHD... I had great trouble switching my attention from one thing to the next. Whatever was in front of me seemed like the most important thing in the world. My analytic abilities seemed to be on steroids.
This cognitive style would not be compatible with assessing multiple, randomly occurring stimuli...such as in complex threat assessments... in a natural environment. This kind of threat assessment has contributed to our heredity for hundreds of thousands of years. On the other hand ADHD, which leads to rapidly alternating focus of attention would be ideal for identifying natural risks in the environment. One style is perfect for study and in depth analysis...the other for survival in a risky environment or in coping with a constantly changing environment.
If you look at life in the bush... dwell time in one location can be related to the probability of certain risk factors. So, the need for novelty, which is a feature of ADHD, would tend to drive a desire for a changing environment.
With all of these genetic variants, I think we need to try to determine why they have been preserved... what their natural function is...and then try to
modify the social experience so that it more closely matches the genetic inheritance of the indivdual. Sitting some kids in a school room is a mistake and is in fact pathogenic[noparse]:)[/noparse]
ADH may also be a normal phase of cognitive development... which we each pass through in a slightly different way. If you look at a first grade class... at some time or another they all look like they have ADH.
But this forum is all about technology... and specifically about technology from Parallax[noparse]:)[/noparse]
For every natural problem... there is a technical solution[noparse]:)[/noparse] And for every technical solution, one must carefully choose the technology.
People here prefer Parallax... and as you imply, they seem like the smartest and nicest people in the world[noparse]:)[/noparse]
Rich
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Parallax Forums - If you're ready to learn, we're ready to help.
I agree that this forum and Parallax products attract some amazing people. What always fascinates me is that the “old” members will often spend hours solving other people's problems... for no reward, just for the pleasure of solving the problem. Now that is another ADHD trait. The parallax products, particularly the Stamp, the Propeller and the SX allow us to be spontaneous and throw together circuits. Spontaneity is another ADHD trait
There is no doubt that ADHD is what the medical profession call a spectrum disorder. Some have mild symptoms and others have it real bad. As you have pointed out a couple of times, ADHD can be made much better or much worse by social and environmental issues. I find it interesting that you developed the traits after neck radiation. There are people who claim that this ADHD is caused by the Hippocampus or Ganglia. The hippocampus is the conductor of the orchestra that we call our brain. (once again the scientific proof is flimsy). It is also low down in the skull, close to the neck.
Whatever it is that makes us different, you have to admit that our creativity and ability to find elegant solutions is addictive!!!
CJ
Kind regards from King Chaka Zulu’s village – Kwa Dukuza – on the dark continent (Its dark and raining today)
John Bond
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Actually... the hippocampus is way up there in the brain, mostly related to memory functions. I have also noticed that diagnoses are somewhat "seasonal." For a while, if a kid was having problems in our primary schools, the chances are he would be diagnosed as attention deficit disordered and put on ritalin. Now the tendency is to call the same kind of kid as an "autism spectrum" disorder... which covers a lot of ground.
There is no normal anymore... there are just disorders. If you got honest answers from people, everyone would qualify for some kind of diagnosis.
The good news is that educators are beginning to find out that if you throw all the kids in the same hamper... some of those kids that fail in that bin would actually succeed if you used a different hamper.
Imagine trying to fix a micro-controller based system by dripping electrolytes on it various parts... that's pretty much what we do when we medicate most kids.
Rich
and hopefully you will be able to come up with a Prop-centric, public domain EEG system[noparse]:)[/noparse]
Yes, not adequately diagnosing is a big problem. What’s even worse is we·may not·understand the brain yet. You’ll see that Rich and I have slightly different views of what the Hippocampus does and our views are both accepted in science.
·
In 1994, Professor Antonio Domasio used lie detectors and EEG/EPG to show that emotions (all emotions) occur in the body at least 100 milliseconds before the brain starts to respond. His reasoning which I support but the American Mental Health Association (AMHA)·does not, is that you see activity first in the organ that produces it. This means that someone who is a pain in the neck is just that and a sore heart starts with the heart. All emotions are a function of our body, not our mind. This theory is controversial but gaining ground quite rapidly.
·
Following this, Dr Candice Pert discovered brain cells in the body, first in the liver then in all other organs. This is the same world renowned researcher who discovered neuropeptides and how individual brain functions take place. She now claims that a substantial part of our subconscious thought occurs outside the brain, in other organs. This theory is gaining acceptance very rapidly even among the conservative AMHA.
·
If we don’t feel emotions in our brain, merely interpret them and if a good part of our thinking takes place in our bodies, not our brains, then most of what we think we know About our brain could be just plain wrong. VERY DISTURBING!!!
·
Rich
I think you·could find the hippocampus is a bit·lower in your skull than you think. I was given an impromptu anatomy lesson by a doctor after the Noa Lisboa massacre in Angola in 1976. One body had half the head cleanly blown away and cauterized by a 5.5-inch shell. It was sickening but anything taught under extreme emotions is well remembered.
Kind regards from the only continent in which war is endemic, Africa
John Bond
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Post Edited (John Bond) : 3/20/2009 9:17:29 AM GMT
Wow.. Interesting thread! I scored 12 out of 14 on this list,
yet I've never been evaluated for ADHD. I'm not sure I would want
myself altered from what I see as "normal" (Is there such a thing?)
I have some personal experience with Bipolar Disorder in the family,
so I would love to see the Propeller applied toward monitoring & testing.
OBC
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
New to the Propeller?
Check out: Protoboard Introduction , Propeller Cookbook 1.4 & Software Index
Updates to the Cookbook are now posted to: Propeller.warrantyvoid.us
Got an SD card connected? - PropDOS
I suggest you don’t have a diagnosis – you’ll probably be told you have some degree of ADHD and the label won’t add anything to your image of yourself. You are certainly not a “Jumpie”.
Unfortunately, creativity, ADHD, mania and depression are fellow travellers. God must have a sense of humour because he seldom gives you only one of them.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Most of the users on this board(except a few who register and moan just before their school assignment should be finished) are problem-oriented.
We're hard-wired to solve problems, and if we don't have a problem at hand, we go searching for one...
and where better to search for a problem than here?
Note; I'm left-handed(If that has any significance), I go treasure-hunting(Geocaching), do jigsaw puzzles(1500 - 3000 pieces, mostly), hand-code htm, write sci-fi(not very well or very often)...
And then there's the 200 or so computers in my closets and attic...
Yup, just an ordinary guy, like everyone else here...
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Don't visit my new website...