Category: Conferences

Advanced Brain Technologies Conference

By Siegfried Othmer, PhD

headphone-familyWe recently returned from the Annual Conference of Advanced Brain Technologies, meeting in Ogden, Utah. Roxana Sasu and I were on the program, and Kurt handled the exhibit. The conference had a lot of the same tone and flavor of our own Clinical Summit in that a large body of enthusiastic practitioners had gathered for the occasion. Here was an opportunity for them to interact with like-minded practitioners, hear about the latest findings from clinical studies, listen the academic researchers on related topics, and just luxuriate in each other’s company.

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Virtual Reality

by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

Virtual Reality
Developments in the virtual reality sphere were another highlight of the latest Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Matters were raised to a higher level of visibility even before the conference, when Facebook pumped $2B into Oculus. A billion here, a billion there; pretty soon you are talking about real money. As it happens, we took a look at an Oculus system a while back to evaluate its suitability for neurofeedback. It wasn’t long before each of us felt just a little woozy from the experience, and opted for going back to maneuver in the real rather than the virtual world.

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Biofeedback Society of California Conference 2014 – The ‘Common Core’ of Biofeedback and Neurofeedback

by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

BSC Conference 2014
M y own theme at the conference was the common core of biofeedback and neurofeedback. This has actually been a recurring theme. This was a topic that I had covered back in 2006 at this same conference, which was also held in Northern California. At that time the talk was part of a multi-ring circus, and the only folks in attendance were neurofeedback people. The attempt to heal the breach between the two disciplines had not found its audience. By now, of course, the terrain is very different, at least at the conceptual level, if not at the level of practice. Most of the older biofeedback practitioners are sticking with their knitting, as far as I can tell. Change is being introduced with the new people entering the field, most of whom are no doubt being attracted by the greater glamour, and the bracing challenge, of brain training.

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Biofeedback Society of California Conference 2014 – George Fuller: Wearables and Apps

 

by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

BSC Conference 2014
G eorge Fuller von Bozzay spoke about new developments in the area of wearables, apps, and other consumer-oriented devices. As it happens, he has himself been involved in one of these developments in the past. One of his neighbors is (or was) Ryan Gordon of Atari fame, and at a time when he was looking for projects he became intrigued with George Fuller’s idea for the development of video feedback for a GSR signal. Gordon insisted, however, that it be in the form of a game, and thus emerged the first such product, “Mind Drive.”

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Report on the Annual Conference of the Biofeedback Society of California

by Siegfried Othmer, PhD

BSC Conference 2014
T he 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Biofeedback Society of California was an upbeat and rollicking affair. It got underway with a look back at the work of the Menninger group and the Life Sciences Institute by Patricia Norris. Ostensibly the key research objective there had been to study the dimensions of human consciousness, but in fact there was considerable engagement with the use of biofeedback for therapeutic purposes as well. The work with prisoners extended over nine years, and it reached a number of prisons. Support for this work was withdrawn at a time when the State of Kansas was facing a budgetary crisis that caused the cancellation of nearly all rehabilitation programs in the prisons, with the exception of some attention to violent sexual offenders.

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Reflections on ISNR Meeting

EEG Info NewsletterThis newsletter was first published in NeuroConnections, the joint publication of the AAPB and ISNR, Winter 2011

This year’s ISNR meeting seemed to have more invited speakers who were comfortable talking neurofeedback. In the past, one had the feeling that some presenters were there mainly to collect their speaking fees, and were not really prepared to engage with us on our core assumptions. There is a rising tide in the neurosciences that is lifting all boats, even ours. The conversation is shifting toward a language of networks, of structural and functional connectivity, as the key issue in psychopathology, and toward neuromodulation as a strategy for functional recovery. And there we are, having occupied that space already for some decades.

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