Neurofeedback is an amazing technology with many exciting possibilities, including the ability to control devices with mind power alone and the potential to help increase levels of focus and attention and to reduce stress.

Neurofeedback measures brainwave activity and feeds the information back in such a way that the user is able to recognise certain brainwave patterns and learns how to change them at will.

In the case of Mindball the feedback is the ability to move a ball into a goal, so that the player who can better control their level of attention and stress wins the game. With the ProComp range of neurofeedback devices you can select different brainwave patterns, associated with specific behaviours, and learn how to optimise desireable traits and to change patterns that are destructive.

Since Barry Sterman’s original work on neurofeedback in the 1960's (see “What is it?”, right) research has steadily uncovered evidence that neurofeedback can help with a wide variety of issues, including attention problems and anxiety.

NASA, for example, has been using neurofeedback to train maximum attentiveness in its astronauts and pilots for many years. Closer to home psychologist David Vernon, now at Canterbury Christ Church University in England, showed in 2003 that his group of subjects were able to increase their recall from 71 percent of the words in a memory test to almost 82 percent after just eight neurofeedback sessions. And a study published the same year by researchers at Imperial College London based on 100 students at the Royal College of Music, showed that those students who had received neurofeedback training made significantly fewer mistakes and achieved noticeable improvements in areas such as musical understanding, stylistic precision and imaginative interpretation.

A study by Vincent J. Monastra, PhD, of the FPI Attention Disorders Clinic in New York State, published in the December 2002 issue of Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, indicates that out of the 100 children in the study between 6-19 years old with ADHD, the 51 who received weekly sessions of EEG biofeedback training for a year were able to reduce or eliminate their medication - and maintained the same level of improvement in focus and concentration as when they had been on Ritalin drug therapy. Monastra is quoted on WebMD as follows: "At the conclusion of treatment, all of those who underwent biofeedback were able to cut their medications by at least half - and still enjoy the improvements they got from the drugs. And about 40% were able to discontinue their medication. The kids who didn't get biofeedback needed to continue medication to sustain improvements."

In a research project with younger children published in October 2005 in the British Psychological Society’s magazine "Educational and Child Psychology" , Melissa Foks put forward evidence gathered in a South London primary school that students given neurofeedback training showed significant behaviour gains over the no-treatment control group. Based on a group of 23 children aged between seven and ten, 12 were given neurofeedback training and the others acted as a control group. The children in the first group were given twenty half hour sessions once a week and at the end of it their behaviour had improved dramatically.

Links	About Neurofeedback	What is it?
Neuofeedback Scientific American on neurofeedback Neurofeedback in education Mindball Mindball video Mindball on ABC TV Mindball on BBC Radio 4 Mindball in SEN Magazine	Neurofeedback is an amazing technology with many exciting possibilities, including the ability to control devices with mind power alone and the potential to help increase levels of focus and attention and to reduce stress. Neurofeedback measures brainwave activity and feeds the information back in such a way that the user is able to recognise certain brainwave patterns and learns how to change them at will. In the case of Mindball the feedback is the ability to move a ball into a goal, so that the player who can better control their level of attention and stress wins the game. With the ProComp range of neurofeedback devices you can select different brainwave patterns, associated with specific behaviours, and learn how to optimise desireable traits and to change patterns that are destructive. Since Barry Sterman’s original work on neurofeedback in the 1960's (see “What is it?”, right) research has steadily uncovered evidence that neurofeedback can help with a wide variety of issues, including attention problems and anxiety. NASA, for example, has been using neurofeedback to train maximum attentiveness in its astronauts and pilots for many years. Closer to home psychologist David Vernon, now at Canterbury Christ Church University in England, showed in 2003 that his group of subjects were able to increase their recall from 71 percent of the words in a memory test to almost 82 percent after just eight neurofeedback sessions. And a study published the same year by researchers at Imperial College London based on 100 students at the Royal College of Music, showed that those students who had received neurofeedback training made significantly fewer mistakes and achieved noticeable improvements in areas such as musical understanding, stylistic precision and imaginative interpretation. A study by Vincent J. Monastra, PhD, of the FPI Attention Disorders Clinic in New York State, published in the December 2002 issue of Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, indicates that out of the 100 children in the study between 6-19 years old with ADHD, the 51 who received weekly sessions of EEG biofeedback training for a year were able to reduce or eliminate their medication - and maintained the same level of improvement in focus and concentration as when they had been on Ritalin drug therapy. Monastra is quoted on WebMD as follows: "At the conclusion of treatment, all of those who underwent biofeedback were able to cut their medications by at least half - and still enjoy the improvements they got from the drugs. And about 40% were able to discontinue their medication. The kids who didn't get biofeedback needed to continue medication to sustain improvements." In a research project with younger children published in October 2005 in the British Psychological Society’s magazine "Educational and Child Psychology" , Melissa Foks put forward evidence gathered in a South London primary school that students given neurofeedback training showed significant behaviour gains over the no-treatment control group. Based on a group of 23 children aged between seven and ten, 12 were given neurofeedback training and the others acted as a control group. The children in the first group were given twenty half hour sessions once a week and at the end of it their behaviour had improved dramatically.	Controlling devices with the mind sounds like science fiction but it is actually a technology that is available today. Perhaps you heard about or visited the London Science Museum exhibition in 2007* that showed the latest advances in this area and where Mindball was one of the star attractions. Mindball is one example of a technology called neurofeedback or EEG (electroencephalography) feedback. This is a bit of a mouthful, but basically it means monitoring the level of electrical brain activity in the brain and showing the resulting graph (or other output) to the person being monitored – it’s the brain equivalent of a cardiogram. Monitoring uses easily attached sensors, so there is nothing invasive or unpleasant about the process at all. The idea has been around since the mid 1960's, when an American scientist called M. Barry Sterman (now professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles) observed that it is possible consciously to control specific frequencies of brain activity (he was working in the range 12 to 15 hertz, or cycles per second). Much to his own surprise he went on to find that the ability to control these frequencies appeared to reduce the likelihood of epileptic seizures.