Neuro Biofeedback : time to share

Friends,

I am still working on two of my blogs from the last 2 weeks. Hence nothing posted in the last 10 days. In the meanwhile I thought I write this piece to share with a wider audience something I witnessed and learnt yesterday. It's about Neuro-biofeedback.

For the last 2 months I have been consulting with a neuro-therapist for my low-back pain. His name is Satish Kumar and he trained under Dr. Lajpatrai Mehra of Mumbai. Last week, Satish-ji gave me a blue book titled "Re-Engineer Your Brain", a book writen by one Dr. N.S. Srinivasan and another Dr. Balasubramaniam, both from Chennai. It is a book on neurobiofeedback and deals with how people could use the reactions from the body as feedback to work on one's own brain and treat some non-pathological conditions such as autism, delayed growth among children, epileptics, and such other pretty tough diseases without any other medication. Pretty interesting, eh?. Going through the introductory section of the book made me get interested about the concept and I wanted to know more. Luckily enough, Satish-ji told me about a lecture session scheduled on Sunday (yesterday, Aug 10, 2008) and invited me to attend it. And, I went.

The organizers were a couple : as I have not taken their permission to identify them here, I wont name them. They have a 12 year son named Nehal. Growing up, Nehal began showing "hyper activism", "problems with speech" and "lack of attention" and other child growth/behavior related issues. The couple tried many therapies and finally came in contacts with Dr. N.S. Srinivasan of Medha Mind, an organization in Chennai. Dr. Srinivasan did an QEEG [Quantitative Electr0-encephelogram] on the kid and figured out the reason for Nehal's condition as one related to the "wiring between the cortex and the thalamos regions of the brain". Using some cool technologies he began treating Nehal and in about 12 days Nehal's condition began to improve rather dramatically. A kid who wouldn't sit attentive for even a minute had improved to "3 minutes" in 12 days! The parents were ecstatic. They decided to host Dr. NSS in Bangalore and invited about 12 members to take part. Incidentally, it was Nehal's birthday yesterday! [Go to http://www.medhamind.com/ for some details on NSS's organization.]

I went to the workshop for 3 important reasons:

1. Simple: Satish-ji invited me and the session sounded interesting.
2. There are a few children and young adults in my extended family who have autism and growth related problems. An elderly uncle has lost his ability to speak. So, I wanted to know if Srinivasan and his techniques could be of any hope to my dear ones.
3. Lastly, to learn if the QEEG based Neurobiofeedback technique had been successfully used in treating other critical illnesses such as cancer, renal failure, and others.

I am happy to note that it was an emphatic "yes" for my quest #2. And, a "possible" for my #3 above.

Below are my notes from the 2 hour long presentation. I am not comfortable with many of the medical/neuro terminologies. Thus, it is possible I may have gotten some of the terminologies or their applications incorrect. Sharing here in case someone wants to utilize this new found technique in treating such special children.

• Dr. N. S. Srinivasan is a physicist by training. After his BSc in Physics from Loyala college, Chennai, NSS turned spiritual and spent over 10 years with many Himalayan gurus. He trained under the giants like A. Parthasarathy at Mumbai and Dr. Tapovanam in the Himalayas. And, he himself was on the "discourse circuit" delivering talks on vedanta and spiritualism for over 10 years, around the world. Later, he resumed his schooling and did as many as four MS degrees, including one from BITS Pilani. Later, Srinivasan learnt with the guru of Neurobiofeedback, Dr. Barry Sternman. And, turned a researcher in the new and promising field of neurobiofeedback.
• Neurobiofeedback is a relatively new type of computerized biofeedback that alters brain chemistry by manipulation of brain waves with the use of established training protocols. The training activates healthy neurons to produce healthy neurochemicals. The phenomenon has been documented through the work of Barry Sterman, Ph.D., Professor of Neurobiology and Biobehavioral Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. [Content courtesy : http://www.healthcareconnectionoftampa.com/neurobiofeedback.html]
• Training the brain is like learning cycling. You have to learn it yourself and others cannot teach you. Also, once you learn cycling it stays with you no matter what. It is similar with training the brain. Once you train and wire the brain right, it needs no further training or treatment. Rather, it improves over time.
• As can be imagined, it is a tough task to train children with autism or such conditions. The real problem is that such kids are not able to maintain their attention and receive training. Obviously, improving their attention span is the first problem that is tackled by neurobiofeedback practitioners.
• Simply this is what NSS did yesterday. He called Nehal and put a wireless sensor on the kid's forehead. The sensor communicated with the laptop running a special software built by NSS and his team at Medha Mind.
• NS Srinivasan set a few parameters (like temperature) on the software and began monitoring the functioning of frontal lobes of Nehal's brain (the area of the brain that helps in mobilizing attention). Then, NSS played an episode of "Mr. Bean" on the screen. Apparently, Nehal loves to watch this episode.
• As long as Nehal was watching the movie attentively, it played along. The moment he lost his attention, the movie stopped playing. The screen froze. He would again begin paying attention to the screen and the movie would resume playing. Technically speaking, seeing a movie is a reaction that Nehal's body involving eyes, ears, neck and other motor organs produced on glancing Mr. Bean's photo on the screen. As a reward for his paying attention to the picture and recognizing it, the software displayed the next picture from the episode for Nehal. Then the next one; then the next. and so on, to make it a movie for Nehal. He would get to see the next photo in the series when he saw and recognized the previous one. The software controlled the streaming of pictures based on the metrics gathered by the sensor on Nehal's forehead.
• NSS explained that once the kid reached a stage where he would sit and pay attention for about 40 minutes, he would begin the next step. That would be to do a complete QEEG to map the childn's brain and to identify "abnormal functions within normal looking parts of the EEG". Then they start custom brain training protocol sessions to achieve things like (a) Increasing SMR (Sensory Motor Rythm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensorimotor_rhythm), (b) decreasing emotional agitations in the top-right part of the brain, (c) improving the "brain paths" (wiring, circuitry) and so forth.
• The treatment costs about 15,000 for QEEG analysis and about 1,000 per training session.
• The patient requires about 6 to 9 months to become "normal".
• Even in cases where they were not able to completely cure a child they were successful in identifying the cause of the problem right, and decreasing the dosage of the drugs significantly.
• Srinivasan shared from his 12 years of practicing that they have achieved remarkable progress with children with autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and so on.

Those interested may contact Dr. NS Srinivasan at nss@medhamind.com; he is based out of Chennai. This could very well be the miracle that your acquaintance have been waiting for.

Trust that helps.