Tale of Self Discovery Part 3

History of Alpha Brain Wave Feedback

Part 3 - continued from part 2
[Published in Megabrain Reports, May, 1994, edited for the web]
James V. Hardt, Ph.D.
The Biocybernaut Institute

Dr. Hans Berger Courtesy of Biomagnetic Center, Jena

Historically, the roots of Alpha brain wave feedback training lie in a discovery made in 1908 by an Austrian Psychiatrist named Hans Berger. He discovered the existence of oscillating electrical waves in the brain, and he called them Alpha waves, because they were the first electrical activity to be discovered in the brain. Alpha [ ] is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, like our "a ", and is often used to mean the first or the beginning. He kept his discovery secret for 10 years while he conducted research into what he thought was the basis of ESP.

Berger also discovered that Alpha waves were uncommon in anxious people, and if an anxious person did have a few Alpha waves, they were smaller than usual (a weaker signal with less amplitude). After he published his findings in 1918, interest in electrical waves in the brain spread rapidly around the world. Early scientists mapped out the different types of brain waves (Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Theta), and began to do psychophysical studies on the "natural reactivity " of these brain waves to sensory stimulation. None of these early investigators (pre 1962) ever imagined that people could learn voluntary control of their own brain waves, which were thought to be exclusively an autonomic function.

The laboratory where Dr. Berger discovered Alpha Brain Waves in 1908. Courtesy of Biomagnetic Center, Jena

The new science of Biofeedback was actually launched in April of 1962 by a report by Dr. Joe Kamiya (my former teacher, then colleague and co-author) that people could in fact learn voluntary control of their own brain waves. Brain wave feedback training was heralded primarily as promoting relaxation and mental creativity. Brain wave studies of meditation established that meditators could exert profound control over their brain waves, and brain wave feedback was thought to make possible an "instant Zen " experience. Speculations became confused with claims, and by the late 1960s a firestorm of media attention ensued. This firestorm of popular attention to exaggerated or unsubstantiated claims disturbed the conservative authorities of the medical, psychiatric, and psychological communities.

As a result, a number of eminent scientists began to do Alpha brain wave feedback studies to rebut the popularized claims. Many of these eminent scientists were unfamiliar with the vast classical literature of scientific research on brain waves and psychophysics, especially the work done on the psychophysics of Alpha waves. As a result their studies did not employ anything approaching optimal designs or ergonomic feedback technology.

Without an informed understanding of the causes of the natural waxing and waning of Alpha rhythms it proved to be quite difficult to successfully train people to increase their Alpha, resulting in most Alpha researchers in the 1970s failing to teach their research subjects how to increase Alpha activity, obviously resulting in a flood of publications stating that Alpha feedback did not work. Some of these reports even suggested that people innately lacked the ability to learn control of their Alpha activity. Most of these researchers did not know that their incomplete findings were caused by non-ergonomic feedback technology and inappropriate training protocols, and virtually all employed too little feedback time. Also absent in these reports were any Alpha-related benefits. If benefits come with increased Alpha, then no Alpha increase means no benefits.

Some in the cultural establishment may actually have been relieved that Alpha feedback was being shown not to work, given the difficulties which were experienced in countering the psychedelic drug movement and movement known then as the "counter culture ". The popular belief that Alpha feedback was an electronic technology for consciousness expansion and transformation, was now contradicted by the existing consensus of so called experts. So the word went out: "Brain waves can NOT be voluntarily controlled. " As a result the Alpha brain wave feedback movement went underground by the mid 1970s, and most brain wave training fell into obscurity as just another fad spawned by the Psychedelic 1960s.

However, the considerable clinical and popular enthusiasm, which had been generated for doing "biofeedback " could not be put back into the bottle. That energy and enthusiasm was blocked from going into brain wave research by the negative findings of experts, so all that energy went, instead, into doing "biofeedback " with the NON-brain activity of the body. Biofeedback became to be synonymous with the peripheral modalities of muscle tension (learning to relax the muscles), of skin temperature (learning to warm the hands and feet), and electrodermal (learning to change the electrical responses of the skin which are induced by shallow or transient emotions).

Most of this "biofeedback " work was done under the label of "stress reduction ", which was acceptable to established authorities. At the same time the clinical practitioners of peripheral modality biofeedback were gradually eroding resistance to the idea that the mind and body are inextricably interconnected. There were also specialty applications which began to infringe on the domains of medicine, dentistry, and psychiatry. For example, learning to relax the jaw muscles would prevent teeth grinding and the tooth loss associated with bruxism. In addition, learning to warm the fingers and toes cured a painful disorder characterized by inadequate blood circulation in the digits known as Reynoud's disease. Medicine had been ineffectively treating Reynoud's disease with powerful drugs, which had negative side effects, and as a last resort, by amputation of the fingers and toes. Temperature biofeedback was a big improvement over traditional medicine in this regard.

Although there will soon be major changes as people rediscover the power and the range of brain wave feedback training, most of the work done today by biofeedback clinicians is still done with the peripheral modalities of skin temperature, muscle tension, and electrical conductivity (or resistance) of the skin. Peripheral modalities of feedback are generally only effective in working with some peripheral symptoms. The peripheral modalities are largely ineffective in working centrally, with the brain itself. This limits the results to treatment of symptoms rather than treating their underlying causes.

Because would-be brain wave biofeedback practitioners have been limited by grossly inadequate equipment, until just the last few years, and because they continue to be limited by lack of knowledge of proper brain wave training protocols, biofeedback has been limited to the peripheral modalities. Biofeedback has remained, in the official view, as an interesting curiosity of limited power and limited range of applications. As a result, biofeedback has not been highly regarded by the medical professions.

Self discovery continues - Part 4