I'm in the miltary and associated with the medical side of the house. With the War on Terror, we now have a lot of data on traumatic brain injury and the Army has invested quite a bit in something called Neurofeedback. It has had some really nice results in sort rewiring brain connections, or perhaps a better term is rerouting. When the brain is injured and certain parts of the brain are damaged thenbrain is able to rewire and perform functions. Neurofeedback essentially trains the brain to use new paths. The side benefit of this is that anyone can take advantage of this treatment and one can see marked improvements in the function of the brain, processing speeds, better memory, etc. The fundamental principle is based in the fact that your brain doesn't always wire itself in the most efficient manner. Your brain is a true multitasking unit. You can breath, walk, talk, smell, and be thinking about that cute little brunette - all at the same time. The problem is that all those functions may not be performed at optimal efficiency. In fact, some things may be much slower at processing than others. What Neurologists hav found is that people with learning disabilities, ie like ADHD typify a pattern where a cognitive skill like thinking of an idea or remembering something, gets slowed down in being effectively being convey to someone else by another brain function like an oral processing skill - failing to speak or better yet forming the right words to convey an idea whereby the cognitive part of the brain is moving so fast the other parts of the brain can't keep up. What appears to the the outward world of those witnessing the event is someone is tongue tied or can't get out a great idea or write it down quickly. This example is just one of many types of disconnects that so-called normal brains have and that we tend to group in such disorders like ADHD. Now, thing of an injured brained, where cognitive or processing is damaged. You can clearly see where someone who gets hurt with a traumatic brain injury from a concusive blast and this forms the basis for the need of repair of the processing of brain function. Without getting too technical, Neurofeedback begins by mapping the various parts of the brain, how well they are interconnected and functioning and then compares that mapping to what are considered normal functioning base lines. Wherever there are sub- optimal connectivity and processing speed, those form the basis for a very specific therapy. For the brain injury patient one gets back some ability to talk, for example, where the speech was lacking. This rerouting or optimizing of brain connections can benefit the normal person too. By improving the neural connectivity, processing speeds can go up. New pathways for processing different thoughts can be done in parallel instead of sequentially. A good analogy is what is faster, a single line with 20 people waiting on one cashier or 10 lines with twenty peole waiting and ten cashiers? I would encourage anyone interested in this therapy to read up about it and then go get a brain mapping and see if it doesn't show a diffenrence. I am not suggesting that you will suddenly become some sort of multitasking genius like the movie "Limitless" but with therapy and then follow-on regular engagement of mental exercise can see some long term benefits.
Apologies for the typos- using my wife's I-Pad is an adventure
