Home of Attention available soon

“Home of Attention” is an App that uses state-of-the-art technology of NeuroSky that allows you to easily and flexibly train your attention. It consists of NeuroSky’s MindWave-headset, a mobile and easy to use EEG(electroencephalogram)-system and a software specially designed for this purpose by neurofeedback-expert and psychologist Dr. Axel Kowalski.

It is possible to use “Home of Attention” for peak performance training, to maximize your mental and/or physical capabilities as well as pointed stress-management-training.

This way you can learn exactly those techniques that allow you to master your everyday life more balanced than before. You learn to save your resources and you are provided with tools that help you to stay calm even under severe stress and enable you to make the right decisions.

Furthermore, advanced applications for group seminars with use of neurofeedback/ biofeedback technology are available and are already in use for example in corporate management-training. Supervised training as well as application in neurological treatment are of course additional and important fields of usage. Software as well as headset are very user friendly and only require short initial-training.

With the “Home of Attention“ you can significantly and lastingly improve your ability to concentrate and your relaxation levels with regular, short training units (once or twice a week for about 25 minutes).  Daily group sessions and workshops for corporate employees will produce considerable results after only eight days. Our visual neurofeedback-method presents you a direct visualization of neural processes and brain activity with are the basis for attention focusing. This way, you are able to track physical reactions “on screen“ and influence those individual processes. This way, mechanisms for attention and relaxation can be learned. Bodily reactions are observed and tracked directly to allow for an optimal connection of relaxation and work periods.

Deliberate manipulation and alteration of your own brain activity

Neuroscience has proven that people are able to influence, even control their own brainwaves. For this sensors are applied to the head to measure brainwave activity and visualize it. With the help of specific training, so called neurofeedback, in which you learn to influence your own EEG, you are able to alter your brain’s activity.

• You learn to relax at any time, even in times of great stress or times that bring a lot of mental strain.
• You will be able to actively reach a state of relaxation after a hard day’s work and tot o relax for short controlled periods to achieve peak performances.
• You learn how to use your concentration to access any required performance at an instance.
• You will be able to positively influence and change your work-life-balance.
• You learn how to avoid burn-out syndrome.

Attention and Relaxation training with the use of state-of-the-art Technology

Even as in everyday language terms like attention and concentration are used frequently, most people are not aware how it actually “feels“ to be highly concentrated or how to effectively reach such a state. Being able to concentrate at will is often referred to as “having a good day”, while attention problems result in “a bad day”.

Especially in the field of education, there is the additional problem, that “bad days” often can only be identified in the aftermath, for example when grades are given. But how is one supposed to remember what factors contributed to a bad or a good day?

(The picture shows the hardware we use (NeuroSky – MindWave) – which is used for training and communicates with dedicated software.)

To effectively and autonomously influence behavior and performance it would be very important to know: How does attention work, what means of feedback are at my disposition to be focused and visualize that focusing?

A visualization of attention with the use of NeuroSky’s MindWave and the “Home of Attention” app

One possibility to record one’s brain activity in relation to certain situations is EEG and neurofeedback. Measurement of electric brain activity (EEG) is the methodological basis of neurofeedback.

Activity of neurons in the neocortex (upper layer of neurons in the brain) is recorded, processed and visualized as the “speed” with which neurons communicate within functional units (“speed” = frequency, measured in Hertz (Hz) = 1/s).

This way the device is able to determine the frequency variation, which depends upon the state of mind (e.g. awake, asleep, focused, relaxed, stressed). This variation can be used for diagnostic, training or gaming purposes. Recent developments in the gaming industry made measuring EEG in an easy and portable way possible.

The MindWave opens a whole new set of possibilities. Like all of NeuroSky’s products it uses a dry sensor – in contrast to medical EEG-systems, which require the application of conductive gel to the head. The newest model features an ear clip for noise reduction and can be used without any prior training. Software and headset are far more user-friendly than other EEG-systems, which – other than the completely new design of the MindWave – are often based on medical EEG-systems. Surprisingly, all those improvements don’t come with a loss of reliability (the MindWave reaches about 96% accuracy of a research-grade EEG).

The Method

Visualization of brain activity is usually presented to users on screen. Depending on the individual symptoms or training purpose the shown activity ist o be increased or decreased. The task can be reinforced by additional feedback. For example, music will play, a computer animation or a video will only continue, if a certain threshold is de- or exceeded.

Picture: Screenshot of the training program

This way, the brain is rewarded, when it generates brainwaves that are desirable for the specific training, and thus positively reinforced. Thousands of research papers have provided specific signatures of brainwaves or frequency bands for respective states of mind. If a person is in deep sleep, most of the neurons work very slowly- about .5 to4 times a second – this is the so called delta frequency band. The more active we perceive events in our environment, are focused and concentrate, the more the neurons in the beta frequency band are at work, this happens about 13 to 30 times a second. If attention is disrupted there is an adverse shift in brainwave activity.

The following graph provides a rough overview over frequency bands and related behavior. The higher the shares of a frequency band of the entire spectrum, the stronger the associated behavior.

Excerpt of frequency range and respective behavior

This provides a target number for neurofeedback training: Keeping a signature (a mix of different frequency shares) as stable as possible to adapt optimally to specific situations and behavior patterns.

Studies have shown, that if the blue part (see screenshot above), the so called theta band, is too high, attention is not good. The brain works too slowly; this theta frequency also represents the so called thalamus, a part of the mesencephalon. The thalamus is responsible for passing all sensory information to the processing areas. High Theta activity = Thalamus is in oscillatory mode = information is not or insufficiently passed on = the person is not receiving much of her surround environment.

The lower the theta activity, the more information can be processed. This is a basic requirement for behavior which is called attention or concentration.

Relaxation, as it is the target of various meditation techniques, can/should – depending on training progress or experience in meditation – have such a signature:

This state is characterized by a significant maximum of alpha waves. The person in question is neither working on a certain task, nor sleeping or dozing. The best description of this state is taken from various books on meditation: observe your thoughts but don’t follow one specific one.

The Training

Training may seem very abstract at the beginning and you may ask yourself: what am I supposed to do or think? The answer to that is quite easy – think about nothing, just let your brain do the work. After some time you will get to learn how to keep the trained states for longer time periods, the success counter will show longer and longer time intervals as training progresses.

In order to receive feedback during training about whether you are succeeding to hold a certain target, we designed a special feedback-display. Areas which are supposed to be trained up (meaning that as many neurons as possible should work in the average speed for that area) are represented by a green circle, areas that are supposed to be trained down (fewer neurons should work at the average speed for that area) are represented by a red circle. As soon as the full circle in the middle (which changes size in accordance to how many neurons are working in the shown speed) is red or green too, you are training successfully. If it changes color to white, you are not training successfully. The difficulty of the program is set in a way, that even if you have to match three different training areas, you are successful about 70 to 80% of the time (at the beginning, this will look very hard to you, but this is the only way for your brain to learn how to reach the desired state). To make feedback to you even more clear, a video or music – in upcoming releases of the app also simple videogames – can be linked to the app. If music or video are running smoothly, you are successful, if music or video stop, your are at that moment not succesful.

At the beginning, try to do two to three training of about 25 to 30 minutes without interruption units per week, with one day in between each time. Feedback of training success (see picture below) can optionally be sent via e-mail to or supervised on a „coach screen“ by an experienced coach, who then can make suggestions for further improvement.

Features

• MindWave-connection via ThinkGear-driver by NeuroSky
• Visualization of raw data
• Visualization of frequency parameters (Delta, Theta, Alpha1, Alpha2, Beta1, Beta2, Beta3, Beta4)
• Visualization of parameters determined by MindWave algorithms (relaxation and attention)
• Neurofeedback-training based on data provided by the MindWave’s figures for frequency parameters – Goals: Improvement of attention and relaxation
• Automatic and manual threshold detection and target number for height of certain frequency parameters which are to be achieved during training, respectively
• Various possibilities for feedback whether targets are achieved
  • Selectable videos – use of own videos is possible – for demonstration purposes some commercially available videos are included
  • Animation/game –videogame-like animations are used, where the user is able to control figures or objects by controlling the frequency parameters of his brain activity
  • Music – use music at your discretion, e.g. for meditation training
• Analysis: automated analysis of training sessions and clear output of session data as pdf
• Automated data storage for analysis and possible passing to a supervising neurofeedback-therapist/coach

Contact:

Tel: +49 (0) 6403 6099362 email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.