Neurotopia Neurofeedback and Depression / Anxiety

Anxiety Spectrum Disorders

Neurofeedback is probably the most effective, non-invasive, pain-free and drug-free way to deal with anxiety and panic attacks available today. No medications are used and therefore the patient becomes empowered to make and sustain the changes, thereby becoming more prepared to handle and cope with the next challenge of life.

Multiple States of Anxiety

Anxiety states include panic attacks and phobias at one extreme, and such problems as performance anxiety and stage fright at the other. When a person is challenged to perform in some way, the brain reacts by overly heightened vigilance that actually undermines its own ability to function well.

Neurotopia Neurofeedback

In neurofeedback training, the patient is shown information derived from his or her brainwave tracings as they are occurring. This is the feedback portion of the process that allows the patient to understand and make appropriate changes required to achieve success. Then the individual is asked to allow some time to experience the process and how the brain automatically seeks to accomplish the goal of "winning the game." This is the same process that you go through to learn how to ride a bike. Once you figure out how to get out of your own way and eliminate the fear of falling/failure, you learn how to ride the bike. Neurofeedback training repeatedly challenges the brain to improve/restore its own internal regulatory processes, which in turn, allows the patient the opportunity to be "in control" once again.

QEEG brain-map findings of elevated beta waves are consistent with the presentation of anxiety spectrum complaints.

There are also significant deficits of the alpha frequency which is a common characteristic in the anxiety population as well.

Depression

Everyone feels sad or less interested in activities occasionally. But if you feel sad or empty most of the day or have a loss of interest or energy for your favorite hobbies, or if those hobbies don't give you the satisfaction they used to nearly every day for two weeks or more, it could be depression.

Neurotopia Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback offers a new modality for addressing depressive conditions. This appears to be the case because brainwave training impacts the basic mechanism by which the brain controls physiological arousal. In this manner, normal regulation of arousal may be restored, which means that sleep may normalize in the depressed person, and normal range of affect may return. In other words, when someone is depressed, they have a dominance of slower moving brainwaves.

Meds Don’t Last

The medical model may prescribe anti-depressants or stimulants. This will speed the brainwave up temporarily until the medication is metabolized in the body and the old brainwave pattern dominates once again. Other benefits of the training may be increased attention span and overall clarity. If the person is experiencing chronic pain, which may be either a cause of depression or its effect, such pain may diminish as well.

Compelling research indicates that there is often a neurophysiological basis for depression, particularly in people with a family history of depression. Neuroscientists have discovered a particular brainwave pattern that allows us to identify individuals with a biological predisposition for developing depression.

Evidence from QEEG brain-mapping studies suggests that frontal alpha wave activation is related to affective style, linking elevated left hemisphere alpha waves and decreased right hemisphere alpha waves to negative affect. Whereas, decreased left hemisphere alpha waves and elevated right hemisphere alpha waves are linked to positive affect.

Over 120 scientific studies describe and document the abnormal brainwaves in those with depression. Brainwave abnormalities include: alpha and beta activity being of excessively high or low amplitude overall or in certain brain areas, excessive or deficient delta slow waves, abnormally decreased or increased coherence, and the brainwaves lacking sufficient complexity to adjust mood to the environment and circumstances.

Neurofeedback treatments for depression appear very promising not only in bringing relief from depression, but in modifying the underlying biological predisposition for becoming depressed. Neurofeedback focuses on resetting the brain with the goal of producing an enduring change that does not require indefinite medication use.

"Using neurofeedback to retrain the brain corrects depression, and produces a brain state that is less vulnerable to depression."

Drs. Baehrs & Rosenfeld, Northwestern University