This is part of ongoing BCI research. The method involved is called Functional Electrical Stimulation, and FES control via a BCI is just one of the latest developments in this field. Take a look at this and this for more info on current developments.
As a software engineer at a small medical devices company in Cleveland, OH, I've been working with neurofeedback for the past three years, and developed an applet to use during my workday to help control my own ADD.
I would take issue with those who deny the existence of ADD and ADHD, primarily because there are distinct physiological signals that can be observed among the attention deficit crowd. Some of the distinguishing characteristics found in the EEGs of attention deficit individuals include increased activity within the theta band (4-7 Hz) and decreased activity within the beta band (12 Hz and up, ignoring the 'SMR' band), as well as lower peak amplitudes in each band, when compared with those of persons considered 'normal' or 'non-ADD/ADHD.' For more information on this, consult any of Shouse and Lubar's groundbreaking papers from the late 1970s on attention deficit disorders.
That said, the use of biofeedback systems in the treatment of ADD/ADHD has precious little documentation to back up some of the miraculous claims made by device manufacturers, many of whom seem rather reluctant to provide hard physical data to back up their claims. Though I can anecdotally state that I have had success with my own system (using custom software and an 8-channel wireless device called the BioRadio), an important detail is that biofeedback is not, and never will be, an overnight miracle cure. It is a long, arduous, time-consuming and often frustrating process with incremental gains. Though having tried methylphenidate (Ritalin) and dexedrine (Dextrostat) throughout my high school and college years, I much prefer the non-pharmaceutical options. I have yet to try treatment with Strattera, mainly because my insurance company is giving me the shaft, but am interested in the prospect of a non-stimulant ADD medication. I've got bad memories of schoolmates stealing my dexedrine so they could do bumps of it in the bathroom.
Another avenue to investigate, which has also yielded tremendous results in my own case (possibly moreso than the biofeedback), is yoga. The breathing techniques and methods of focus taught in yoga, not to mention the relaxation involved, doesn't eliminate the natural state of the ADD/ADHD brain, but does provide the practitioner with objective analysis of his or her own ability to concentrate, and in the words of 80s cartoon icon G.I. Joe, "knowing is half the battle."
I disagree. I'm not a sysadmin, but I highly benefitted from reading the book. This is NOT a "...for dummies" or "...in a nutshell" book. It's got much broader appeal. There's stuff in there that would tickle statisticians, epidemiologists, computer scientists, software engineers, historians, and even the occasional home user who wonders why the hell his network keeps dying.
Yes, he got his PhD in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University, and currently works as a network security researcher at Arbor Networks in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He most recently spoke at Pacsec in Tokyo.
Is it standard practice these days to remove links to amazon.com? There were several in the original article. Did I miss some sort of OSDN/bn.com tie-in?
I'm currently involved with an NIH-funded research project to build an ADD/ADHD diagnostic device. Comparing baseline EEGs of people classified as ADD/ADHD and those of people classified as "normal," there is most definitely a physiological abnormality present. The ratio of low-frequency (Theta, 4-8 Hz) to high-frequency (Alpha, 9-12 and Beta, 13-20) activity is markedly higher in ADD/ADHD individuals than in normal people.
There are various neurofeedback (self-regulation of neural activity based on real-time signals) available, but one has to be selective regarding them. It has been my experience that the devices that don't require active participation (so-called "dream machines") aren't of much use. Those that require active participation by the patient, however, have proven results in training people to manipulate active brain states. For more information, I'd suggest going to a local university library and thumbing through the Journal of Clinical Psychology as a good starting point.
This sort of thing comes up often in studies involving brainwave analysis. Though the article doesn't mention it, I would suspect they're performing a series of FFTs on the 0-20Hz range of the data. This splits EEG data into what are called the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Theta bands. Neurological biofeedback calls on the user to see, hear, or feel a sampling of their own Delta waves and raise or lower the values. This is what creates the earlier-mentioned "altered states," which can be either hyper-concentration or great relaxation. So in a sense, this isn't a "breakthrough" but a modern way of implementing a relatively old technique.
I would tend to disagree. My record label has NEVER made a profit from selling CDs. We don't even recoup most of the costs of creating the CD. All we charge is enough to break even on the cost of pressing the cd/vinyl and printing the inserts. The company exists for the musicians and the listeners, not for the producers. We have never stolen Napster's or anyone's logo, and we have never turned a profit, but we've gotten exposure to and appreciation from many people who truly enjoy listening to music for its own sake, not because pop-culture is telling them to buy the CD.
Incidentally, if anyone would like to trade banner space for CDs/vinyl, feel free to email me.
Lethargic Records is a small, independent record label geared toward electronic music. This company takes the non-profit, non-RIAA approach to the extreme: net profit so far is somewhere around -$12,000. The company was started in order to give budding musicians and DJs a chance to record and produce their work at virtually no cost. The point is to get music out to the public, not to fatten the suits' wallets.
If you looked at the facts, you'd have noticed that Napster has violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. Maybe you should think before you support such fragrant violators of U.S. law.
Yeah, those damn smelly law-breakers. They are fragrant indeed.
Man, I'm glad machines aren't sentient yet... that robot was demoted from computer assembly at IBM to flipping hamburgers. It'd be the first recorded case of robotic depression/job burnout.
It's now quite popular to have ethernet jacks at many truck stops, especially along interstates. There is one chain that has installed ~15 10baseT outlets at each of its stations that have high commercial traffic, though I'm not sure of its name. An interesting news article on network connections at truck stops is found at http://www.internettelephony.com/archive/10.11.99/ nmnews.htm.
Slashdot Mirror
This is part of ongoing BCI research. The method involved is called Functional Electrical Stimulation, and FES control via a BCI is just one of the latest developments in this field. Take a look at this and this for more info on current developments.
Upcoming talk and demonstration on the development of Brain-Computer Interfaces: http://www.notacon.org/speakers.html#lowne (shameless plug)
Invasive, motor-cortical BCI development at Utah: http://www.bioen.utah.edu/cni/Projects/Motor.htm
Mike Gibbs' work with BCIs at Oxford University's Robotics Group: http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~mgibbs/research.html
The Neural Prostheses program at the National Institutes of Health includes calls for proposals in BCI development: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/npp/
The University of British Columbia's BCI research group: http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~garyb/BCI.htm
Results of the 2003 Brain Computer interface competition (focuses on signal processing techniques): http://ida.first.fraunhofer.de/projects/bci/compe
BCI development at the Cognitive Science and Technology group at the Helsinki University of Technology: http://www.lce.hut.fi/research/bci/
Dr. Jessica Bayliss's BCI work and extensive bibliography (very important, seminal work on BCI development): http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/research/ and http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/research/baylissThesis
Dr. Charles Anderson's work at Colorado State University with EEG pattern classification in BCI systems: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/eeg/index.html
Manchester University's Toby Howard has written some good articles on BCIs, mostly for Popular Science: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/aig/staff/toby/research/b
Dr. Michael Black at Brown University teaches a course in BCI development: http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs295-7/home.html
Cyberkinetics, Inc. makes medical-use BCIs: http://www.cyberkineticsinc.com/
I would take issue with those who deny the existence of ADD and ADHD, primarily because there are distinct physiological signals that can be observed among the attention deficit crowd. Some of the distinguishing characteristics found in the EEGs of attention deficit individuals include increased activity within the theta band (4-7 Hz) and decreased activity within the beta band (12 Hz and up, ignoring the 'SMR' band), as well as lower peak amplitudes in each band, when compared with those of persons considered 'normal' or 'non-ADD/ADHD.' For more information on this, consult any of Shouse and Lubar's groundbreaking papers from the late 1970s on attention deficit disorders.
That said, the use of biofeedback systems in the treatment of ADD/ADHD has precious little documentation to back up some of the miraculous claims made by device manufacturers, many of whom seem rather reluctant to provide hard physical data to back up their claims. Though I can anecdotally state that I have had success with my own system (using custom software and an 8-channel wireless device called the BioRadio), an important detail is that biofeedback is not, and never will be, an overnight miracle cure. It is a long, arduous, time-consuming and often frustrating process with incremental gains. Though having tried methylphenidate (Ritalin) and dexedrine (Dextrostat) throughout my high school and college years, I much prefer the non-pharmaceutical options. I have yet to try treatment with Strattera, mainly because my insurance company is giving me the shaft, but am interested in the prospect of a non-stimulant ADD medication. I've got bad memories of schoolmates stealing my dexedrine so they could do bumps of it in the bathroom.
Another avenue to investigate, which has also yielded tremendous results in my own case (possibly moreso than the biofeedback), is yoga. The breathing techniques and methods of focus taught in yoga, not to mention the relaxation involved, doesn't eliminate the natural state of the ADD/ADHD brain, but does provide the practitioner with objective analysis of his or her own ability to concentrate, and in the words of 80s cartoon icon G.I. Joe, "knowing is half the battle."
I disagree. I'm not a sysadmin, but I highly benefitted from reading the book. This is NOT a "...for dummies" or "...in a nutshell" book. It's got much broader appeal. There's stuff in there that would tickle statisticians, epidemiologists, computer scientists, software engineers, historians, and even the occasional home user who wonders why the hell his network keeps dying.
heh, yeah, i shoulda checked. mea culpa.
Yes, he got his PhD in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University, and currently works as a network security researcher at Arbor Networks in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He most recently spoke at Pacsec in Tokyo.
Is it standard practice these days to remove links to amazon.com? There were several in the original article. Did I miss some sort of OSDN/bn.com tie-in?
I'm currently involved with an NIH-funded research project to build an ADD/ADHD diagnostic device. Comparing baseline EEGs of people classified as ADD/ADHD and those of people classified as "normal," there is most definitely a physiological abnormality present. The ratio of low-frequency (Theta, 4-8 Hz) to high-frequency (Alpha, 9-12 and Beta, 13-20) activity is markedly higher in ADD/ADHD individuals than in normal people.
There are various neurofeedback (self-regulation of neural activity based on real-time signals) available, but one has to be selective regarding them. It has been my experience that the devices that don't require active participation (so-called "dream machines") aren't of much use. Those that require active participation by the patient, however, have proven results in training people to manipulate active brain states. For more information, I'd suggest going to a local university library and thumbing through the Journal of Clinical Psychology as a good starting point.
This sort of thing comes up often in studies involving brainwave analysis. Though the article doesn't mention it, I would suspect they're performing a series of FFTs on the 0-20Hz range of the data. This splits EEG data into what are called the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Theta bands. Neurological biofeedback calls on the user to see, hear, or feel a sampling of their own Delta waves and raise or lower the values. This is what creates the earlier-mentioned "altered states," which can be either hyper-concentration or great relaxation. So in a sense, this isn't a "breakthrough" but a modern way of implementing a relatively old technique.
Incidentally, if anyone would like to trade banner space for CDs/vinyl, feel free to email me.
Lethargic Records is a small, independent record label geared toward electronic music. This company takes the non-profit, non-RIAA approach to the extreme: net profit so far is somewhere around -$12,000. The company was started in order to give budding musicians and DJs a chance to record and produce their work at virtually no cost. The point is to get music out to the public, not to fatten the suits' wallets.
Yeah, those damn smelly law-breakers. They are fragrant indeed.
Man, I'm glad machines aren't sentient yet... that robot was demoted from computer assembly at IBM to flipping hamburgers. It'd be the first recorded case of robotic depression/job burnout.
It's now quite popular to have ethernet jacks at many truck stops, especially along interstates. There is one chain that has installed ~15 10baseT outlets at each of its stations that have high commercial traffic, though I'm not sure of its name. An interesting news article on network connections at truck stops is found at http://www.internettelephony.com/archive/10.11.99/ nmnews.htm.
The burden of proof generally rests with the accuser.