QEEG - Quantitative EEG

To begin Low Energy Neurofeedback System therapy (otherwise known as LENS) I've been going down to RI once a week for the last two or so months to begin my neurofeedback.

One of the first meetings was to take my brain map to get an idea of where my brain isn't "normal." It's called a Quantitative EEG. They put a swimmers cap on me with tons of electrodes attached and 'injected' goopy gel into the holes where the electrodes are. The gel is supposed to aid the conduction of your brain waves to be read from your scalp. These maps are utilized in many different disease states - depression, epilepsy, migraines, ADHD, mTBI - and are pretty complex. They can be taken while you're doing a project, like talking or reading or math problems; they took mine while I was to sit there with my eyes closed and told not think of anything for 12-13 minutes.

There are several brainwaves that are always present under that skull of yours. Depending on what you're doing or if you're injured their are different ratios of those waves present. But it takes someone really educated in the mapping to interpret them (for example: ADHD kids will show too many delta waves, increased theta waves, decreased alpha and no significant change in beta waves all in the prefrontal and frontal lobe area... I'm not sure if they have to be doing something or just sitting there for that combination).

The waves are given names in groups of different frequencies. Delta are generally the waves 1 Hz to 4 or 5 Hz. Beta waves are the higher frequencies - 12 Hz to 25 Hz. High Beta include faster waves to 30 Hz. The program they use to measure all your frequencies that are present at the same time sorts them and creates colorful 2-D pictures to give you an idea of where it picked up how many, what amplitude, and by each frequency (1 Hz - 50 Hz) and by the clusters of frequencies that would make up each kind of wave.

This is an example of one of my faster waves in the Beta range:

It really doesn't tell you anything except there is more in the back right of my head than the front. The real information starts to come when they take this data and create more 2-D graphs after comparing your info to those of people in your age range and gender that are "normal" or "healthy" or people with no injuries or problems. If you are "normal" and just like everyone else like you should be - you will have a completely green brain!!

My alpha waves are perfect!!

The scale on the bottom is a standard deviation scale - based on a general bell curve I believe. So Green is normal... and Blue would be very low, Red is WAY WAY WAY too much!!

So this is where the cool part comes for people like me - who were starting to think they're a hypochondriac because nothing is showing up anywhere. MRI, CAT scan, whatever - nothing is wrong with you. Well I got hit in the head and things just aren't right... but there's nothing to show it.

Here's one of my higher frequency (28 Hz) waves after being compared to normal people - can you tell where I was hit? Can you see where my migraine was the day I had the map done? THIS IS SO VALIDATING!!!

And then when grouped into High Beta (25 - 30 Hz) it's an average, but still very clear to me!!

Sooooooo cool. It's pretty much used as a diagnostic. And guess what - I got hit in the head and my brain waves changed.

People with mTBI generally have WAY too much delta (the slowest waves, present when you're at your deepest sleep) and WAY too much beta waves (the fastest waves, present in anxiety and panic attacks) that can be seen where their injury occurred.

This... THIS is a mechanism. This is why my vision in my left eye has been ridiculous, this is why I'm just not the same, this is why I get easily over stimulated, this is why I can't think correctly all the time, this is why I've had to relearn everything in my life, this is why my personality has changed, this is why my sleep schedule is screwed around, this is why something actually happened when I was hit. This is what's wrong and where we can begin to see where I can benefit from LENS therapy. Which I'll talk about next...