Comparison Shopping in Medicines
A few weeks ago the Economist Magazine offered up the lament that comparison shopping is very difficult to do when it comes to medications because the underlying studies have not been done. It is difficult enough for pharmaceutical companies to get new drugs past their regulatory hurdles via Randomized Controlled Trials against a placebo control. […]
Parallel Universes
Sometimes we who work with neurofeedback have the impression of living in a parallel universe. We live with a view of reality that is attaining increasing confirmation via formal studies while at the same time becoming much more clinically effective, yet it is a view that appears to be almost completely disconnected from mainstream thinking. […]
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
We have just seen the new movie, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which opened here recently in limited release. I had read the book some years ago because of its graphic telling of the story of locked-in syndrome. Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor of the French edition of Elle, had a brainstem stroke that left him […]
ADD / ADHD, Balkanization, Commentary, Diffusion of Innovation, Neurofeedback, Outreach, Paradigm, Placebo, Professional Issues, Research
November 19, 2007
The Role of Amateurs in Science
There is one field in which an extensive mutually beneficial relationship has existed between amateurs and professionals. It is in astronomy, and the phenomenon was recently taken up in Science Magazine by John Bohannon (Volume 318, 12 October 2007, pp 192-3). Significantly, this symbiosis is occurring in a science in which we have only limited […]
The Unlicensed Practitioner: Again
The unlicensed practice of neurofeedback has arisen again as an issue with an article written by Cory Hammond that appeared in a recent issue of the National Psychologist newspaper. Following a concise and favorable introduction to neurofeedback, Cory Hammond wrote the following: “It is crucial for licensed professionals to report lay neurofeedback practitioners to state […]