The waves of the future
What if you could - oh, what's the phrase? - recall things better?
For millions of Americans with mild traumatic brain injuries, improved recollection means more than stumbling upon a lost phrase.
Psychologist Roger Riss of Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital hopes to find out whether brain wave training will improve this group's ability to recollect things and improve their lives.
And his research might have implications for everyone.
This is a memorable tale, linking cats, a Russian-made brain wave device, an Austrian graduate thesis and Apollo rocket fuel. It ends in a tiny Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital office with time running out.
But let's launch this kitty tale in the 1960s, when scientists first discovered that people could train their brain waves.
With electrodes glued to their heads, people could learn to bend the tiny electrical signals that are produced inside their skulls.
Also in the 1960s, M. Barry Sterman of UCLA was studying a particular burst of brain waves emitted when a person enters sleep. Since it's problematic to study sleeping humans, Sterman studied cats, which produce similar waves just before pouncing.
It's thought in both cases the signals settle the brain.
Sterman rewarded his cats for pouncing and they became quite good at creating the brain squiggles, called sleep spindles. When the study ended, he put his cats away.
Two years later, Sterman landed a federal contract to study hydrazine rocket fuels. People working with the fuel displayed odd behavior.
Sterman got out his cats and, since it was a federal contract, bought more cats. As expected, all cats exposed to the fuel got sick and vomited. Many developed seizures - but not all.
Puzzling over the data, Sterman recognized his sleep study cats. Many were doing far better than the newcomers.
The thought was, Riss said, that as the toxin reached the brains of untrained cats, chaotic activity in one area of the brain soon spread. The brain is interconnected, and as other areas responded to the confused brain signals, they also fell prey.
But in the brains of trained cats, as chaos began in one area, their brains sent out a sleep spindle, zeroing out the brain before chaos could take hold.
More remarkable, the trained cats retained this ability for years. Cats and humans have very different brains, but might there be lasting benefits in humans?
Brain wave training studies on children with attention deficit disorders do show lasting results, Riss said.
As he sees it, brain waves aren't meaningless byproducts of the mental system but part of its active machinery. Aparticular wave may be akin to a pulse sent by a computer processor as it seeks information from the hard drive.
Images of the process were captured by an Austrian student.
He had taught one test subject to associate different ideas with different images. Now, with the wave recorder connected, he sees one image flashed before him.
The waves in his brain are displayed on a map in super slow motion. First, electrical waves begin broadcasting from a portion of the brain immediately behind the forehead. It's a part of the brain known to be associated with memory.
The waves ripple across the cortex, first against one skull wall and then against another.
Suddenly, the ripples stop coming from the front, and a new signal begins broadcasting at the back of the head toward the front.
To Riss, the brain began by seeking the storage location of the idea within the cortex. The return waves are an answer back.
Fast forward in time to last year, when University of Salzburg, Austria, graduate student Simon Hanslmayr, a fellow student of the first Austrian,is working on his master's thesis on a different function of memory.
The study focuses on two related brain waves, alphas and thetas. Working as mirror opposites, alphas fall in intensity as thetas rise.
Alphas signal the brain to get ready for a mental task, Riss said. Thetas show a brain that is processing information.
How well the brain processes, Riss said, depends on how much of the brain gets alerted by the alpha.
A big alpha is like a big alarm clock. The bigger the signal, the more brain aroused. The more brain aroused, the better the result.
Hanslmayr said his subjects were trained to increase their alphas using old-fashioned brain-wave training.
Since he had little money to pay subjects and was doubtful of obtaining results, he tested 18 Austrian students after one hour of brain wave training.
Surprisingly, nine students improved their alpha signals.
In the memory tests, students were shown a picture of a die with three sides displayed. Below it were more three-sided dice, but only one matched the first - with a twist. The matching numbers were in a different orientation, as though spun.
"The mental rotation task places a high demand on working memory," Riss said. "You must keep all of the faces in your mind as you check them against the images."
Each student had 2.5 seconds to pick the correct dice before advancing to the next set.
Among the nine students who increased their alpha signals, memory ability also increased 10 percent.
Madonna hospital then enters the story.
Chronic memory problems are characteristic of people who have suffered mild traumatic brain injuries. As a group, they also exhibit shallow alpha signals.
Training at Madonna will attempt to increase their preparatory alpha signals.
Riss doesn't know if his subjects will see improved memory, but unlike the Austrian students, his subjects will receive intensive brain wave training.
About 160 patients have passed through Madonna's mild traumatic brain injury clinic in the past three years. He hopes to study 50 of them this summer. The study is funded by the Department of Education and made possible by efforts of the Madonna Foundation.
Before he could begin, however, Riss needed a more sensitive brain wave machine and one that fit his budget.
He found it in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Russian Academy of Science, across the street from where Pavlov trained his drooling dog. The problem was, the manual was in Russian.
Riss and Hanslmayr spent a week on the telephone with the St. Petersburg institute, attempting to get the system working before Hanslmayr's scheduled departure.
They enlisted the help of Jerald Varner, UNL associate professor of electrical engineering.
Hanslmayr then chanced upon a fourth expert, striking up a conversation with Jim Peyton of Colorado at his motel. Peyton has expertise in computer programming and artificial intelligence.
The foursome soon filled Riss' Madonna office with buzzing brain activity. On the night before Hanslmayr left, they even recorded some of it.
Was it karma?
From cats to students, from Russians to computer experts, success depended on serendipity as much as it did on science. But Riss isn't giving full credit to chance.
With incredulity, he asked: "You don't think I have guardian angels?"
Reach Mark Andersen at 473-7238 or mandersen@;journalstar.com.
For millions of Americans with mild traumatic brain injuries, improved recollection means more than stumbling upon a lost phrase.
Psychologist Roger Riss of Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital hopes to find out whether brain wave training will improve this group's ability to recollect things and improve their lives.
And his research might have implications for everyone.
This is a memorable tale, linking cats, a Russian-made brain wave device, an Austrian graduate thesis and Apollo rocket fuel. It ends in a tiny Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital office with time running out.
But let's launch this kitty tale in the 1960s, when scientists first discovered that people could train their brain waves.
With electrodes glued to their heads, people could learn to bend the tiny electrical signals that are produced inside their skulls.
Also in the 1960s, M. Barry Sterman of UCLA was studying a particular burst of brain waves emitted when a person enters sleep. Since it's problematic to study sleeping humans, Sterman studied cats, which produce similar waves just before pouncing.
It's thought in both cases the signals settle the brain.
Sterman rewarded his cats for pouncing and they became quite good at creating the brain squiggles, called sleep spindles. When the study ended, he put his cats away.
Two years later, Sterman landed a federal contract to study hydrazine rocket fuels. People working with the fuel displayed odd behavior.
Sterman got out his cats and, since it was a federal contract, bought more cats. As expected, all cats exposed to the fuel got sick and vomited. Many developed seizures - but not all.
Puzzling over the data, Sterman recognized his sleep study cats. Many were doing far better than the newcomers.
The thought was, Riss said, that as the toxin reached the brains of untrained cats, chaotic activity in one area of the brain soon spread. The brain is interconnected, and as other areas responded to the confused brain signals, they also fell prey.
But in the brains of trained cats, as chaos began in one area, their brains sent out a sleep spindle, zeroing out the brain before chaos could take hold.
More remarkable, the trained cats retained this ability for years. Cats and humans have very different brains, but might there be lasting benefits in humans?
Brain wave training studies on children with attention deficit disorders do show lasting results, Riss said.
As he sees it, brain waves aren't meaningless byproducts of the mental system but part of its active machinery. Aparticular wave may be akin to a pulse sent by a computer processor as it seeks information from the hard drive.
Images of the process were captured by an Austrian student.
He had taught one test subject to associate different ideas with different images. Now, with the wave recorder connected, he sees one image flashed before him.
The waves in his brain are displayed on a map in super slow motion. First, electrical waves begin broadcasting from a portion of the brain immediately behind the forehead. It's a part of the brain known to be associated with memory.
The waves ripple across the cortex, first against one skull wall and then against another.
Suddenly, the ripples stop coming from the front, and a new signal begins broadcasting at the back of the head toward the front.
To Riss, the brain began by seeking the storage location of the idea within the cortex. The return waves are an answer back.
Fast forward in time to last year, when University of Salzburg, Austria, graduate student Simon Hanslmayr, a fellow student of the first Austrian,is working on his master's thesis on a different function of memory.
The study focuses on two related brain waves, alphas and thetas. Working as mirror opposites, alphas fall in intensity as thetas rise.
Alphas signal the brain to get ready for a mental task, Riss said. Thetas show a brain that is processing information.
How well the brain processes, Riss said, depends on how much of the brain gets alerted by the alpha.
A big alpha is like a big alarm clock. The bigger the signal, the more brain aroused. The more brain aroused, the better the result.
Hanslmayr said his subjects were trained to increase their alphas using old-fashioned brain-wave training.
Since he had little money to pay subjects and was doubtful of obtaining results, he tested 18 Austrian students after one hour of brain wave training.
Surprisingly, nine students improved their alpha signals.
In the memory tests, students were shown a picture of a die with three sides displayed. Below it were more three-sided dice, but only one matched the first - with a twist. The matching numbers were in a different orientation, as though spun.
"The mental rotation task places a high demand on working memory," Riss said. "You must keep all of the faces in your mind as you check them against the images."
Each student had 2.5 seconds to pick the correct dice before advancing to the next set.
Among the nine students who increased their alpha signals, memory ability also increased 10 percent.
Madonna hospital then enters the story.
Chronic memory problems are characteristic of people who have suffered mild traumatic brain injuries. As a group, they also exhibit shallow alpha signals.
Training at Madonna will attempt to increase their preparatory alpha signals.
Riss doesn't know if his subjects will see improved memory, but unlike the Austrian students, his subjects will receive intensive brain wave training.
About 160 patients have passed through Madonna's mild traumatic brain injury clinic in the past three years. He hopes to study 50 of them this summer. The study is funded by the Department of Education and made possible by efforts of the Madonna Foundation.
Before he could begin, however, Riss needed a more sensitive brain wave machine and one that fit his budget.
He found it in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Russian Academy of Science, across the street from where Pavlov trained his drooling dog. The problem was, the manual was in Russian.
Riss and Hanslmayr spent a week on the telephone with the St. Petersburg institute, attempting to get the system working before Hanslmayr's scheduled departure.
They enlisted the help of Jerald Varner, UNL associate professor of electrical engineering.
Hanslmayr then chanced upon a fourth expert, striking up a conversation with Jim Peyton of Colorado at his motel. Peyton has expertise in computer programming and artificial intelligence.
The foursome soon filled Riss' Madonna office with buzzing brain activity. On the night before Hanslmayr left, they even recorded some of it.
Was it karma?
From cats to students, from Russians to computer experts, success depended on serendipity as much as it did on science. But Riss isn't giving full credit to chance.
With incredulity, he asked: "You don't think I have guardian angels?"
Reach Mark Andersen at 473-7238 or mandersen@;journalstar.com.
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