We hope you enjoy this August eNewsletter, featuring six distinguished contributors who answer those questions, and more. Please remember that you can subscribe to receive this free Brain Fitness eNewsletter by email, using the box in the right column.

Know Thyself

Why working memory matters in the knowledge age: As Dr. Tracy Alloway points out, one way to visualize working memory is as the brain’s “Post-it Notes” — we make mental scribbles of bits of information we need to remember and work with. Without enough working memory we cannot function as a society or as individuals. Learn more by participating in this study launched by Dr. Alloway’s team in conjunction with the British Science Festival.

What should everyone learn about the brain?: Dr. Jo Ellen Roseman and Mary Koppel from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) discuss recent recommendations on what all students should know. Not just the basics of brain structure and function, but also a good understanding of mental health—such as the mind/body relationship, factors that shape behavior, ways of coping with mental distress, and the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.

News

Pooling data to accelerate Alzheimer’s research: A good article in the New York Times presents the reasons behind growing research of how to detect Alzheimer’s Disease. A pilot study shows how computerized cognitive training may help reduce falls among elderly. Amazon.com recommends The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness in a thought-provoking mix.

Beyond News

Needed: funding for innovative research on slowing cognitive decline via cognitive training: SharpBrains reader and UK researcher Nick Almond shares a note debunking the so-called BBC brain training experiment  and outlining the type of research he and colleagues at Leeds University deem necessary.

Long-term effects of neurofeedback treatment for ADHD: Dr. David Rabiner reviews the 6-month follow-up of a scientific study on whether neurofeedback can help kids with attention deficits, finding that benefits indeed remained 6 months after treatment had ended. Given, however, that only around 50% of children showed benefits, it is important to regard this tool as part of a multimodal treat­ment program.

Brain Teaser

Test your attentional focus and multi-tasking: How often do you read a document while talking on the phone with a client? Or think about your problems at work while helping your child with his homework? Human attention is limited, and we need to manage it well, as shown in this teaser prepared by Dr. Pascale Michelon.

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Have a great September. And, should you happen to be in Barcelona, Spain, on September 14th, make sure to attend Alvaro Fernandez talk there titled “How and Why Digital Technology Will Transform Education, Training and Brain Health”.

We are constantly assaulted by lots of information and often required to perform several tasks at once. It is not easy to stay focused. However being able to stay focused is crucial to achieve success. Indeed, if you are listening to the office gossip while filling in forms, you will probably make mistakes. If you try to read a document while talking on the phone with a client, you will probably sound distant and uninterested to your client and may not get the contract you expected to get. If you think about your problems at work while helping your child with his homework, you will probably miss opportunities to teach her something.

As you may notice all the situations above involve doing more than one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is enemy number one when it comes to accurate and speedy performance.

Human attention is limited. Think about your attentional focus as the beam of a light. If the light is on an object it cannot be on other objects at the same time with the same intensity. Only dim light will be available to light up the objects in the periphery. The same happens in your attentional system. Dividing attention results in less attentional power devoted to all the different tasks that you are trying to do at the same time. The more tasks, the less attention can be devoted to each. The result is more errors and waste of time. Although we all have the feeling that multitasking saves us time, it is often not the case.

Try the exercise below to test your attentional focus. Three words have been combined to make this grid of letters. How many times does each of these words appear…? Can you compare your performance while searching for just one word vs. two of them at the same time?

How many times is the word SUN shown?
How many times is the word BUS shown?
How many times is the word NONE shown?

Solutions:
Sun is shown 12 times
Bus is shown 8 times
None is shown 4 times

– Pascale Michelon, Ph. D., is Sharp­Brains’ Research Man­ager for Edu­ca­tional Projects. Dr. Mich­e­lon has a Ph.D. in Cog­ni­tive Psy­chol­ogy and has worked as a Research Sci­en­tist at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­sity in Saint Louis, in the Psy­chol­ogy Depart­ment. She con­ducted sev­eral research projects to under­stand how the brain makes use of visual infor­ma­tion and mem­o­rizes facts. She is now an Adjunct Fac­ulty at Wash­ing­ton University.

Here you can enjoy more Brain Teasers and Mind Games.

We are on the cusp of a new revolution in intelligence that affects every aspect of our lives from work and relationships, to our childhood, education, and old age. Working Memory, the ability to remember and mentally process information, is so important that without it we could not function as a society or as individuals. One way to visualise working memory is as the brain’s “Post-it Note”: we make mental scribbles of bits of information we need to remember and work with. For example, we use working memory to remember directions while driving or someone’s name and phone number. Without it, we would be literally lost; we wouldn’t know how to get to that important meeting and would forget important contacts. Working memory is critical for many activities at school, from complex subjects such as reading comprehension, mental arithmetic, and word problems to simple tasks like copying from the board and navigating the halls.

Working memory makes a difference beyond the classroom walls as well. People with superior working memory tend to have better jobs, better relationships, and more happy and fulfilling lives. People with poor working memory struggle in their work, their personal lives, and are more likely to experience trouble with the law. More recently, a growing number of studies demonstrate that working memory is also important for our mental health. In a recent study that I conducted with 20-year-olds, I found that people who view the glass as half-empty but have good working memory are less likely to suffer depression compared to those who view the glass as half-empty and have low working memory. So while we may think that seeing the glass as half-empty, having good working memory acts like a buffer to protect our mental health.
What about you? What does your working memory tell you about your world-view? Why not find out by participating in an online study. Here is what you will have to do:

1. Take some memory tests: Don’t worry, I don’t want to know how often you forget where you left your car keys or if you can remember your loved one’s birthday. You will have to do something much easier. You will see some shapes and just have to remember where you saw them on a grid. Try to do this as quickly as you can without making mistakes.

2. Next, tell me your views about different sentences, like “I felt hopeful about the future”; or “I was bothered by things that don’t usually bother me”. Please rate how strongly you feel these types of statements applied to you during the past week (not how the statements may have applied to you at any point in your lives). You will be asked to rate the sentences using one of the four options:

a. rarely or none of the time (less than once day);
b. some or a little of the time (1–2 days);
c. occasionally or a moderate amount of time (3–4 days);
d. most or all of the time (5–7 days).

The study is launched in conjunction with the British Science Festival and you can participate Here.

–Tracy Packiam Alloway, PhD, is the Director of the Center for Memory and Learning in the Lifespan at the University of Stirling, UK. She is the author of over 75 scientific articles and books on working memory and learning, and has developed the world’s first standardized working-memory tests for educators published by Pearson. She has published academic books, as well as books for the layperson on Improving Working Memory (Sage, 2010) and Training Your Brain for Dummies (Wiley, 2010). Her research has received widespread international coverage, appearing in outlets such as the Scientific American, Forbes, US News, ABC News, NBC, BBC, Guardian, and Daily Mail. She is a much in demand international speaker in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia and is an advisor to the World Bank on the importance of working memory. She was the 2009 winner of the prestigious Joseph Lister Award by the British Science Association for bringing her scientific discoveries to a wide audience.

–About the British Science Festival: The British Science Festival is one of Europe’s largest science festivals and regularly attracts over 350 of the UK’s top scientists and speakers to discuss the latest developments in science with the public. Over 50,000 visitors regularly attend the talks, discussions and workshops. The Festival takes place at a different location each year.

Courtesy of the University of California, Davis, Center for Neuroscience

What should everyone learn about the brain? 

At the national level, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) describes what adults should know in its seminal work Science for All Americans.[1] AAAS also recommends learning goals for K-12 students in its Benchmarks for Science Literacy[2,3], and Atlas of Science Literacy[4,5], and the National Research Council (NRC) offers a similar set of goals in its National Science Education Standards.[6] States and school districts use the AAAS and NRC recommendations as a basis for the design of their own standards, which then inform the development of curriculum and assessment materials (those commercially developed as well as those developed with grant funds). In addition, the neuroscience community has developed its own set of core concepts that K-12 students and the general public should know about the brain and nervous system and has correlated those concepts to the national standards.[7] 

Between the AAAS and NRC recommendations, there are some areas of broad consensus on what students should know. According to AAAS’s Benchmarks and Atlas, for example, students in the elementary to middle school grades should understand the following ideas: 

• The brain enables human beings to think and sends messages to other body parts to help them work properly.
• The brain gets signals from all parts of the body telling it what is happening in each part. The brain also sends signals to parts of the body to influence what they do.
• Interactions among the senses, nerves, and brain make possible the learning that enables human beings to predict, analyze, and respond to changes in their environments.[8]

The National Research Council’s Standards offers very similar concepts in the following knowledge statements: 

• Internal cues (such as hunger) and external cues (such as changes in the environment) influence the behavior of individual organisms. Humans and other organisms have senses that help them detect internal and external cues.
• All organisms must be able to obtain and use resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable internal conditions when living in a constantly changing external environment.
• Regulation of an organism’s internal environment involves sensing that environment and changing physiological activities to keep conditions within the range required to survive.[9]

For high school students, both the AAAS and the NRC learning goals include the role of the nervous system in the rapid transmission of information throughout the body through electrochemical signals. Some but not all of these ideas are also present in the most recent college– and career-readiness standards for science developed by the College Board.[10] 

Beyond the basic but important concepts about the structure and function of the brain and the nervous system, only AAAS has specified any further knowledge in this area as essential to science literacy. For example, AAAS recommends that an understanding of mental health—including ideas about the mind/body relationship, factors that shape behavior, ways of coping with mental distress, and the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders—be considered foundational knowledge for all students. AAAS also includes learning as a topic that should be part of a common core of knowledge. Neither the NRC Standards nor the College Board Standards includes any of these additional brain-related concepts in its recommendations. None of the national standards documents specifies an understanding of the brain that is as detailed and extensive as the core concepts recommended by the Society for Neuroscience. 

Although most states claim to have based their science standards on the AAAS Benchmarks and the NRC Standards, they are not bound by these national recommendations and often interpret them in very different ways so that there is little consistency in standards across the states. As a result, many states list the structure and function of human body systems as a broad topic in their standards, but only some—including Minnesota and North Carolina, for example—specify ideas about the nervous system; others, such as California and Texas, do not. Because of their strong influence on the content included in and excluded from science textbooks, which have been shown to play a central role in determining what is taught in the classroom, the state science standards are an extremely powerful leverage point for anyone seeking to change the content of the science curriculum.[11] 

Brain scientists, like all members of the scientific community, have a key role to play in promoting a wider understanding of the concepts and skills that are important to their field and to science more generally. To help shape their state and local science standards, researchers and clinicians can volunteer to work with state boards of education to review new and revised science standards documents; they can also work with textbook selection committees to ensure that instructional materials are scientifically accurate and include the science content intended by their state standards. In addition, brain scientists can become effective advocates for high-quality science education for all students in their local communities. 

Other models of engagement might also be useful. For example, as the issue of global climate change has become more urgent, earth and atmospheric scientists in federal agencies, universities, and non-governmental organizations have worked together to identify important information for students and adults to understand about climate and the impacts of and responses to climate change. Now that they have developed a framework that lays out the essential principles that all citizens should know about climate science,[12] federal agencies such as NOAA and NASA are funding efforts to develop effective ways to help a wide range of public audiences understand the science and engage in the relevant issues. Project 2061, AAAS’s science literacy initiative is leading one such effort. The project is identifying data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA that can be translated into classroom activities designed to help students understand a variety of weather and climate phenomena and the scientific principles that explain them. Similar efforts to identify phenomena-based learning experiences in the brain sciences—aligned to national and state standards and to the Neuroscience Core Concepts—could be the focus of productive collaborations between brain scientists and K-12 science educators and researchers. 

Editor’s note: in this article for Cerebrum magazine, reprinted here with permission, Dr. Jo Ellen Roseman and Mary Koppal from the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) discuss how brain science fits into national classroom curricula. While recommendations published by AAAS, the National Research Council, the Society for Neuroscience, and the College Board all include standards relating to the brain, what students actually learn in the classroom varies greatly from state to state. 

Jo Ellen Roseman, Ph.D., is director of Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and oversees its programs and activities aimed at improving education in science, mathematics, and technology for all students. Dr. Roseman joined Project 2061 with the release of Science for All Americans in 1989 and has been involved in the development, testing, and dissemination of its subsequent tools, including Benchmarks for Science Literacy, Resources for Science Literacy: Professional Development, Atlas of Science Literacy and its current effort to design assessments of science literacy. Dr. Roseman is the principal investigator for the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science, funded through the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Center for Learning and Teaching program, and principal investigator for a curriculum development project funded by the U.S. Department of Education and focused on middle and high school chemistry and biology. 

Mary Koppal is the communications director for Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and is responsible for the project’s publishing and outreach programs. Previously, Koppal was the publisher for the National Academy of Sciences’ Issues in Science and Technology, where she began her work as the associate publisher/circulation manager. From 1987 to 1994, she was responsible for the overall business and administrative operation of this award-winning national science and technology policy journal. Koppal also served as marketing director for the National Academy Press, which published trade, scholarly, and professional titles in all areas of science, technology, health, and public policy. 

Further reading 

• Promoting Brain-Science Literacy in the K-12 Classroom

Online Resources 

• Genes to Cognition Online: Allows students to explore topics in neuroscience in a dynamic and fluid way.
• Brainy Kids: This Dana Foundation Web site provides resources and activities ranging from virtual dissections to interactive games.
• Test My Brain: Researchers recruit participants via this Web site, allowing students to participate in and learn about actual neuroscience studies.
• University of Illinois Visual Cognition Lab: This site provides videos of classic neuroscience studies on topics like inattentional blindness.
• Brain Hat Template: Educators can use this hat to aid students in learning the different parts and functions of the brain.
• Neuroscience for Kids: This site has many great resources, including recordings of action potentials.
• The Whole Brain Atlas: This site associated with Harvard Medical allows students to manipulate brain scans.
• The Scientist and Scientific American: These magazines have interesting articles on current topics in neuroscience for classroom use with older students.

Article References 

1. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Science for All Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 

2. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Benchmarks for Science Literacy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 

3. American Association for the Advancement of Science, “Benchmarks Online” (2009), http://www.project2061.org/publications/bsl/online/index.php (accessed August 2010). 

4. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Atlas of Science Literacy: Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Author, 2001). 

5. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Atlas of Science Literacy: Vol. 2 (Washington, DC: Author, 2007). 

6. National Research Council, National Science Education Standards (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1996). 

7. Society for Neuroscience, “Neuroscience Core Concepts: The Essential Principles of Neuroscience” (2007), http://www.sfn.org/skins/main/pdf/core_concepts/core_concepts.pdf (accessed August 2010). 

8. See notes 2 and 3. 

9. See note 6. 

10. The College Board, “Science: College Board Standards for College Success” (2009), http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/cbscs-science-standards-2009.pdf (accessed August 2010). 

11. I. R. Weiss, J. D. Pasley, P. S. Smith, E. R. Banilower, and D. J. Heck, Looking Inside the Classroom: A Study of K — 12 Mathematics and Science Education in the United States (Chapel Hill, NC: Horizon Research, Inc, 2003). 

12. U.S. Global Change Research Program, “Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Sciences” (March 2009), http://www.climate.noaa.gov/education/pdfs/ClimateLiteracyPoster-8.5x11-March09FinalLR.pdf (accessed August 2010).

(Situation before) Scientists were looking for biomarkers, but they were not getting very far. “The problem in the field was that you had many different scientists in many different universities doing their own research with their own patients and with their own methods,” said Dr. Michael W. Weiner of the San Francisco Department of Veterans Affairs, who directs ADNI. “Different people using different methods on different subjects in different places were getting different results, which is not surprising. What was needed was to get everyone together and to get a common data set.”

(Situation now) Companies as well as academic researchers are using the data. There have been more than 3,200 downloads of the entire massive data set and almost a million downloads of the data sets containing images from brain scans.

Comment: as discussed in our recent market report, we’ll probably see sooner rather than later a comparable effort aimed at finding the biological and or cognitive markers for the Cognitive Reserve, the emerging cornerstone for a lifelong mental wellness (vs. a disease-specific) approach. For more on the need to standardize data and care, read interview with Patrick Donohue on Reinventing Brain Care through Policy, Standards, Technology. For more on the Cognitive Reserve, read interview with Dr. Yaakov Stern.

A study led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has found preliminary evidence that brain fitness programs may help frail elderly walk faster, potentially preventing disability and improving quality of life.

For walking while talking — which requires considerably more concentration than normal walking — the seniors who took computer training notably improved compared with their initial speeds. By contrast, no improvement in walking speed was observed for the control group.

I think there is not enough criticism about the age of the sample population used in Owens et al. (2010). We have conclusive cognitive and neurological evidence that cognitive/neurological plasticity exists in young adults. There is also adequate evidence that neuroplasticity is evident in older adults. The critical point which I want to make about the sample population in Owens et al. study is that it did not target the correct sample population, that is, older adults who are at risk of cognitive/neuronal atrophy. It does not matter if younger adults improve on brain training tasks, or if skills picked up by younger adults from brain training are not transferred to other cognitive domains, simply because younger adults are good at these skills/cognitive functions. Therefore there is a possibility that ceiling or scaling effects mask the true findings in Owens et al. (2010), as indicated by Zelinski.

The recruitment of the sample population is also very concerning and I do not feel that their control group was appropriate. I fully agree with Zelinski in that the majority of participants were sceptics and there was no monitoring of testing due to the use of using the internet for testing. However I also feel that the control group had an activity which was inappropriate. Salthouse (2006) has illustrated how using the computer/internet has been rated as very cognitively demanding. Therefore I would argue that any investigations into brain training, particularly with older adults, should use the pen and paper method of testing (accepted that Owens et al. did not test older adults).

In line with Zelinski I do not believe that the measures of cognitive functioning were appropriate. The reason for this is that in healthy aging the functions which decline are episodic memory (e.g. Dunlosky & Salthouse, 1996), metacognition (e.g. Souchay & Isingrini, 2004) and executive function (e.g. Perfect, 1997). If we wish to investigate whether brain training can attenuate cognitive decline in healthy aging we need to measure these cognitive functions using techniques which are objective and empirically supported. I do not believe that the tests used in Owen et al. (2010) did this. Furthermore, in line with Salthouse (2006) we need to show a significant age X activity interaction for these cognitive functions.

I have other reservations about the research, but my final point is with regards to the between-subjects design. With my colleagues (Chris Moulin & Catriona Morrison) we have shown that it is possible to use a within-subjects design to investigate the use-it-or-lose-it theory. Demographic factors can then be controlled for and incorporated into the analysis on the second stage of analysis. My argument is that previous research (e.g. Karbach & Kray, 2009; Glisky & Glisky, 1999) have demonstrated that cognitive interventions only work for only certain individuals who can be regarded as at risk. Therefore, there is a need to compare a between-subjects and within-subjects design for older adults, taking into account cognitive functions which decline with age and unfortunately this is not what Owens et al. (2010) did.

Question: At the moment a couple of colleagues at Leeds University and myself are trying to get funding to conduct independent trials on Nintendo Brain Training vs cognitive training approaches, but it’s proving really difficult to get any sponsorship. May any SharpBrains reader got any ideas as to who might be interested?

— Nick Almond is a Research Student at University of Leeds Institute of Psychological Sciences. Following completion of a BSc (Hons) degree at the Institute, Nick started a PhD to investigate cognitive decline in healthy ageing using a combination of approaches including self-report, longitudinal and empirical neuropsychological measurements. Nick is a member of the Leeds Memory group and his supervisors are Dr Chris Moulin and Dr Catriona Morrison. Recently he co-organised the PSYPAG Human Neuroscience and Neuropsychology Conference.

Related articles:

• BBC “Brain Training” Experiment: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly, by Alvaro Fernandez
• Scientific critique of BBC/ Nature Brain Training Experiment, by Dr. Elizabeth Zelinski

Neurofeedback supporters believe that learning this during training generalizes to real world situations and results in improved attention and reduced hyperactive/impulsive behavior. Although a number of neurofeedback studies have yielded promising results it remains somewhat controversial with some researchers arguing that limitations of these studies preclude firm conclusions about the effectiveness of neurofeedback from being drawn.

Last year I reviewed a particularly well-conducted study of neurofeedback treatment for ADHD — see my review here. The study was conducted in Germany and began with 94 children aged 8 to 12. All had been carefully diagnosed with ADHD and over 90% had never received medication treatment. About 80% were boys.

Children were randomly assigned to receive either 36 sessions of neurofeedback training or 36 sessions of computerized attention training. The computerized attention training task was intended to serve as the control intervention and provided equal amounts of time working on a demanding cognitive task under the supervision of an adult; the inclusion of this control condition is a real strength of the study.

The main findings were as follows:

1. Parents of children treated with neurofeedback reported significantly greater reductions in inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms than parents of control children, i.e,. those who received computerized attention training. The size of the group difference was in a range that would be considered moderate, i.e., about .5 standard deviations. 2. Teachers of children treated with neurofeedback reported significantly greater reductions in inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms than teachers of control children. The size of the group difference was similar to that found for parents, about .5 standard deviations.

The authors also examined the percentage of children in each group that were judged to derive a ‘significant’ benefit, defined as at least a 25% reduction in core ADHD symptoms. Fifty-one percent of children in the neurofeedback group met this threshold compared to only 26% of children in the attention training control group. This difference was statistically significant.

- New study presents 6-month follow-up results -

Recently, the authors of this study published 6-month follow-up data so that the duration of neurofeedback treatment effects could be examined. This is an important issue to study as one of the purported benefits of neurofeedback treatment is that the effects can endure well beyond when treatment has been completed.

Follow-up data was available on 61 of the original participants including 38 from the neurofeedback group and 23 from the control group. Follow-up data was based on parents ratings only as teacher ratings were not obtained at this time point.

Of the 32 ‘drop outs’, parents of 15 did not return the follow-up rating scales while the remaining 17 had started on medication. Children who began medication were not included because it was not possible to determine the extent to which their current functioning reflected their initial treatment or their current medication. However, it is reasonable to assume that parents would only start medication if they were not satisfied with how their child was doing.

- Results -

Key findings were as follows.

1. Parents’ ratings of core ADHD symptoms indicated that children treated with neurofeedback were still doing significantly better than children who received the ‘control treatment’. The magnitude of the difference was moderate to large, i.e., about .7 standard deviations. Reductions in symptoms scores from the initial baseline ratings were in the range of 25–30% for the neurofeedback group compared to only 10–15% for the control group.

2.Children in the neurofeedback tended to receive lower ratings for delinquent and physically aggressive behavior, but these differences did not quite reach statistical significance.

3. Parents’ reports of homework difficulties showed a greater decline over time for the neurofeedback treated children than for control children.

4. Group differences in a range of problematic situations that occur at home were not significant.

In addition to these analyses, the researchers also computed the percentage of children in each group who were considered to show a good treatment response, defined as at least a 25% reduction in parents’ ratings of core ADHD symptoms compared to baseline. This was true for 50% of children in the NF group compared to 30% of those in the control group. These differences were in the expected direction but did not quite reach statistical significance given the relative small sample size at follow-up, i.e., a total of only 61 children.

- Summary and Implications -

Results indicate that the benefits of neurofeedback treatment were maintained 6 months after treatment had ended. Thus, compared to children who received computerized attention training, which served as the control treatment, neurofeedback treated children continued to receive significantly lower parent ratings of core ADHD symptoms and also showed a greater decline in homework difficulties over time. These are encouraging findings and highlight that neurofeedback can be a beneficial treatment for some children with ADHD.

Despite these positive findings, however, it is important to emphasize that only 50% of children treated with neurofeedback showed at least a 25% decline in core ADHD symptoms at 6 months, meaning that the other 50% failed to show this level of clinical response. And, if one assumes that many of the children who began medication were also likely to have been non-responders (presumably parents would not have started medication otherwise), this figure becomes even higher. In addition, no follow-up data from teachers was available so it is not possible to know the extent to which any beneficial effects were maintained at school.

In recognition of these treatment limitations, the authors conclude that “…the low responder rate and the portion of children starting a medication in our study argue against NF as a stand-alone intervention for ADHD. The results indicate that not every child with ADHD may improve after NF treatment. In our opinion, NF should rather be seen as a treatment module for children with ADHD which can be embedded in a multimodal treatment program tailored to the individual needs of the child.”

The authors also noted, however, that because they followed a standardized treatment protocol for research purposes, rather than carefully tailoring neurofeedback treatment to each child, that their results may underestimate what is obtained in actual clinical situations.

In conclusion, results from this follow-up study provide evidence that neurofeedback can yield enduring benefits for some children with ADHD. As suggested by the authors, it may be an important component of a multimodal treatment program but its consistent use as a stand alone treatment does not seem to be supported by the findings reported here.

– Dr. David Rabiner is a child clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and Direc­tor of Under­grad­u­ate Stud­ies in the Depart­ment of Psy­chol­ogy and Neu­ro­science at Duke Uni­ver­sity. His research focuses on var­i­ous issues related to ADHD, the impact of atten­tion prob­lems on aca­d­e­mic achieve­ment, and atten­tion train­ing. He also pub­lishes Atten­tion Research Update, a com­pli­men­tary online newslet­ter that helps par­ents, pro­fes­sion­als, and edu­ca­tors keep up with the lat­est research on ADHD.

Related articles by Dr. Rabiner:

• New Study Supports Neurofeedback Treatment for ADHD
• Neurofeedback/ Quan­ti­ta­tive EEG for ADHD diagnosis
• Promis­ing Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Stud­ies for ADHD
• Mind­ful­ness Med­i­ta­tion for Adults & Teens with ADHD
• How Strong is the Research Sup­port for Neu­ro­feed­back in Atten­tion Deficits?
• Self-Regulation and Barkley’s The­ory of ADHD

#1: The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness: 18 Interviews with Scientists, Practical Advice, and Product Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp

#2: My Brain Made Me Do It: The Rise of Neuroscience and the Threat to Moral Responsibility

#7: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

What are the implications of lifelong neuroplasticity on moral responsibility — both of the individual and society?

Technology to upgrade brain care: In this extensive interview, Dr. John Docherty helps connect the dots on why new frameworks and tools are a must to put recent brain research to good use. A must read for all professionals in the field.

Research

Findings from NIH Expert Panel: The American Society on Aging asked Alvaro Fernandez to comment on the findings from a major cognitive health research review by the National Institutes of Health. Lifestyle still matters, and protective factors against cognitive decline are led by cognitive training, physical activity and cognitive engagement.

Scientific critique of BBC brain training experiment: Dr. Elizabeth Zelinski shares her concerns about the April 2010 BBC study, which included substantial and unexplained dropout rates, and questionable outcome measurement and interpretation.

The value of being bilingual and building a Cognitive Reserve to preserve learning and memory even in the face of brain damage are explored in recent studies.

San Francisco Bay Area study seeks participants: The Gazzaley Lab at UCSF is looking for participants aged 20–59 to explore the impact of distraction and multitasking on performance across the lifespan.

Innovation

What impressed Innovation Awards Judging Panel: Get some insight into what most impressed the Judging Panel about each Winner and Finalist of the 2010 Brain Fitness Innovation Awards.

New — SharpBrains’ 2010 Market Report:  SharpBrains’ flagship, 207-page, third annual market report finds continued growth for digital technologies to assess, enhance and treat cognition.

To manage brain fitness through life, we need to put puzzle pieces together: innovative tools to help us better monitor our cognitive health and take informed action are badly needed.…and already emerging.

The internet will fry your brain. Sure: In his latest book, Nicholas Carr does a great job highlighting the implications of lifelong neuro­plasticity, but picks the wrong enemy.

“Serious Games”:  Can video games inspire people to perform acts of altruism? Kyle Smith reports.

Teasers

Yahoo Optical Illusions and teasers: Yahoo! has created an expanded section of illusions and teasers, and we were glad to contribute to it. Enjoy…and have a great summer!