Psychology Today May/June 1998

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WIRED FOR MIRACLES?

Epilepsy. ADD. Depression. PMS. Insomnia. What do all these conditions have in common? They're being treated with a new form of high-tech brain biofeedback So open your radical science horizons. Here, a report on the cresting edge of the brainwave. By Jim Robbins

JAKE'S BIRTH WAS A LONG SHOT. Three months premature, he weighed just a pound, and his early birth took a heavy neurological loll. When he was four, he entered his parents' room one evening, drooling and unable to speak. As they watched, horrified, one side of his body went into seizure and he lost consciousness. Jake's seizures often happened at night, and his parents kept an overnight, bag packed for trips lo the hospital emergency room, where he received injections of Valium. He often had petit mal seizures during the day He was also diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which diminished his fine and gross motor skills.

His learning disabilities included attention deficit disorder and hyperac- tivity. He had speech problems and ground his teeth constantly. His sleep was troubled and he often woke up ten or eleven times in a night.

Like many children with epilepsy, Jake took two heavy- duty anti-seizure medications: Depakote and Tegretol. Both are depressants, and both have serious side effects. As a result, the boy was logy and often tired. We felt that Jake was los- ing.his personality," says his mother. "He was zoned out."

I had known Jake since his birth; the incredible story of his survival had made him something of a celebrity in our town ol Helena, Montana. Two years ago, I was in Santa Fe doing a piece on the use of different technologies to enhance brain performance; while I was there, I heard about a new technique for the treatment of epilepsy-a natural treatment called electroencephalographic (EEG) biofeedback, or neurofeedback. that often reduced or eliminated the need for drugs. I was skeptical, but I mentioned it to Jake's mother at a Christmas party. They drove three hundred miles to Jackson, Wyoming: for a week at the local hospital, Jake underwent two hour-long sessions a day on a computerized biofeedback program.

Within just a few days, Jake's condition had improved. "His teeth-grinding and sleep problems disappeared," says his mother. "We could carry on a conversation for the first time ever. He wanted to cut and draw and zip and button He could never do any of that." Unprompted, friends and relatives remarked that lake seemed more centered.

Later, Jake repeated the protocol for another week. The results were similar. Jake's pediatric neurologist, Don Wight-who had been extremely skeptical-examined the boy. When he was done, he con- cluded that he had found a new and exciting way to supplement his practice: "There was a qualitative and quantitative improvement in the way he was functioning," says Wight. "It was very real."

Jake's parents bought one of the machines and donated it to the local hospital, where Wight is using it in his practice. "For most people, tak- ing one kind of medication to control seizures is a pretty good deal," he says. "I would like to use neurofeed- back with people who are on two medicines, on high doses, or whose seizures are not being controlled." And Jake? Though he may need to continue neurofeedback training for the rest of his life, the quality of that life will most likely be forever changed.

Neurofeedback is a new type of computerized biofeed- back that has begun to wend its way into the health care system with dramatic effects.

It's a far cry from the old kind of biofeedback that was developed in the 1960s and used primarily for relaxation and to treat stress, incontinence, and pain. For some applica-tions-epilepsy, attention deficit disorder, and closed head injuries-a number of studies and much anecdotal evidence suggest neurofeedback is effective. Other research suggests it may help treat chronic substance abuse and post-traumat- ic stress disorder. For other conditions, such as Tourettes syn- drome, sleep disorders, depression, and autism, individual case studies are glowing, but few, if any, controlled studies have been conducted. "The phenomenon is robust," insists Siegfried Othmer, Ph.D., physicist and founder of EEG Spectrum, one of a handful of companies in the U.S. that sell biofeedback equipment. Othmer and his wife Sue fell into the biofeedback business in 1987, when treatment caused a miraculous change in their son, who, like Jake, suffered from life-threatening epileptic seizures.

After seeing Jake's transformation up close, and talking to others who had used neurofeedback, my curiosity was piqued. What could it do for a relatively healthy 42-year-old with the usual assortment of mid-life problems: occasional fatigue, a little mild depression, intermittent problems with sleep? When I started work on this article, I also started a series of training sessions. The results were surprising. But first, a look at just what neurofeedback is-a potential method for changing what drugs and therapy sometimes can't and at the window it may provide on the greatest mystery of all, the human brain.

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Psychology Today May/June 1998