A Symphony in the Brain. (Book Reviews).Author: Jim Robbins Publisher: Grove Press, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Proponents of neurofeedback believe that most health problems are the result of one of three states: over-arousal, under arousal, or instability in the central nervous system. They also believe that they can correct the abnormality through brain wave biofeedback biofeedback, method for learning to increase one's ability to control biological responses, such as blood pressure, muscle tension, and heart rate. Sophisticated instruments are often used to measure physiological responses and make them apparent to the patient, who . Correcting any of these three abnormal states will lead to a resolution of the patient's problem including depression, headaches, anxiety, panic attacks panic attacks, n.pl distressing episodes where an individual experiences palpitations, anxiety, apprehension, sweating, trembling, etc. Can last several minutes and recur unpredictably. , attention deficit disorder attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder (ADD or ADHD) formerly hyperactivity Behavioral syndrome in children, whose major symptoms are inattention and distractibility, restlessness, inability to sit still, and difficulty concentrating on one thing for any post-traumatic stress syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), collection of persistent, debilitating symptoms, the most notable of which is severe, lasting fatigue. In other countries it is known variously as myalgic encephalomyelitis, chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome, and , and premenstrual syndrome. Unfortunately, there is a glaring paucity of rigidly conducted randomized ran·dom·ize tr.v. ran·dom·ized, ran·dom·iz·ing, ran·dom·iz·es To make random in arrangement, especially in order to control the variables in an experiment. , clinical trials to prove this hypothesis. Most of the data available are derived from case reports and open uncontrolled reports. Many published studies have methodologic flaws that cast serious doubts on the validity of the results. In the absence of conclusive strong evidence of its efficacy, neurofeedback is meeting with a great deal of skepticism, especially since it is a departure from established orthodox medicine. In a brilliant work of investigative journalism, Jim Robbins tells the story of brain wave biofeedback or neurofeedback. He not only describes the various events leading to the development of the neurofeedback movement, but also takes the reader behind the scenes to introduce key people, their personalities, struggles, disappointments, and ambitions. The reader gets to appreciate difficulties facing unconventional endeavors and the importance of well-conducted research to validate benefits of new therapeutic modalities. Mr. Robbins, a victim of chronic fatigue syndrome, has tried neurofeedback and found the results very gratifying grat·i·fy tr.v. grat·i·fied, grat·i·fy·ing, grat·i·fies 1. To please or satisfy: His achievement gratified his father. See Synonyms at please. 2. . He relates graphically his firsthand experience with neurofeedback. This book is well written and easy to read. The main text has 241 pages divided into nine chapters. In many chapters, case reports are used to illustrate various points made. There is also a listing of some useful websites and a selected bibliography. |
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