Really enjoyed reading this article and thinking about how to apply their training protocol with my own V1 Lolin. Nice to see this continued focus on HEG research.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7540002/pdf/acp-16-3-300.pdf
a 3 sensor device someday would be really interesting to play with. Fp1, Fp2 and Fpz maybe?
This is a fantastic FNIRS talk the magical google algorithms just dished out to me.
@B.G We are certainly in the early days of this, framing is a huge part of how this work moves forward! There's a lot of people still not talking to each other on the neurology, tech, and psych sides of the aisle and a lot of the most advanced neurotech work is still in motor imagery since it's one the clearest types of brain activity. Higher functions are more generalized and unclear than that as far as I understand, though the simplest forms of biofeedback seem to do well to address them though still too vaguely maybe. My sense is we are gonna begin to see a real consensus here in not a terribly long time on neurofeedback, self-conditioning, and leveraging these more clearly for addressing long term psych disorders and general brain education, not to mention all of the other things we can do with them. Just gotta make it as accessible as possible!!!
One of the more interesting aspects of neurofeedback is the different tools / training strategies available for recapturing the mind. I've worked with a few strategies from DBT recently and those had good results. This article below has a qualitative summary and anecdotal experience from a recent child study on adhd training. Many of these same concepts could apply to relaxed/open focus and HEG training.
Following up, here's a paper about using reward programs to definitively create changes in regional cerebral blood flow: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/neurophotonics/volume-6/issue-2/025011/Functional-near-infrared-spectroscopy-informed-neurofeedback--regional-specific-modulation/10.1117/1.NPh.6.2.025011.full?SSO=1 A sort of mental block we have is to this idea that we have a little more voluntary - and conditionable - control over our internal systems. For HEG in particular, the leap in logic is that we can influence regional blood flow circulation since it's an automatic process for the most part and we can't really feel it directly. It's still a fire-on-demand process which we influence through what modes of thinking and behaviors we engage in voluntarily or not (IMO free will is a skill if your body allows it anyway (genes can suck)). So whether through reward stimulus (operant conditioning) or self control (e.g. breathing, concentration, and learning exercises) you can definitely tweak rCBF and thus how much energy and ability to enter recovery/growth mode your center of consciousness has. There's like a fungal-ish muscle-ish cybernetic-ish model here for the nervous system as an organism and its conscious ability that I struggle to wrap my head around still since it's a weird and kind of gross way to look at yourself haha, but the more I read about extremes like psychotic illnesses on one hand and evolutionary biology on the other, the more it makes sense. There's also a good long ethics discussion to be had about how we conduct our societies and let who decide what for us in light of these ideas. I could take a lot of people to task at this point on policy but if we present the research right there's gonna be no argument.
Following up, here's a paper about using reward programs to definitively create changes in regional cerebral blood flow: https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/journals/neurophotonics/volume-6/issue-2/025011/Functional-near-infrared-spectroscopy-informed-neurofeedback--regional-specific-modulation/10.1117/1.NPh.6.2.025011.full?SSO=1 A sort of mental block we have is to this idea that we have a little more voluntary - and conditionable - control over our internal systems. For HEG in particular, the leap in logic is that we can influence regional blood flow circulation since it's an automatic process for the most part and we can't really feel it directly. It's still a fire-on-demand process which we influence through what modes of thinking and behaviors we engage in voluntarily or not (IMO free will is a skill). So whether through reward stimulus (operant conditioning) or self control (e.g. breathing, concentration, and learning exercises) you can definitely tweak rCBF and thus how much energy and ability to enter recovery/growth mode your center of consciousness has. There's like a fungal-ish muscle-ish cybernetic-ish model here for the nervous system as an organism and its conscious ability that I struggle to wrap my head around still since it's a weird and kind of gross way to look at yourself haha, but the more I read about extremes like psychotic illnesses on one one hand and evolutionary biology on the other, the more it makes sense.
Hey sorry for the late reply, been AWOL dealing with some life stuff. I'm working on a 28 sensor headset now haha, could take an image of your whole frontal lobe with this thing. Will be updating the community on this as I get prototypes made and tested. HEG and FNIRS continue to build rapport in the community, it's exciting to see as it gives really important info and dovetails perfectly with EEG for seeing how the brain is talking and overall functioning.