As part of an overall treatment program, brain mapping may be recommended by your therapist. The brain map is cross referenced with your symptoms, which allows more targeted and specific protocols to maximize progress toward your goals. An online symptom tracker is used to report progress following each session to ensure the most accurate information is being used to inform treatment decisions.
The EEG is a way to measure activity in your brain. Your brain is electric. Every thought you think, every emotion you feel, and every sensation you have is due to the electrical firing of neurons. The EEG or electroencephalograph shows this activity instantaneously, within a few thousandths of a second after it occurs in the brain.
EEG shows us the activity and the coordination of activity of the cortex – the outermost layer of the brain. This is the part of the brain responsible for higher functions like thinking, deciding, and acting. It can show areas of the brain where there is too little or too much activity. It can also show when areas of the brain are not coordinating their activity properly. By studying the EEG in 19 areas of your brain, and cross referencing with the symptoms you report, we are often able to see the reason for your struggles. And once we can see it, we can target it for change with neurofeedback.
Your brain is incredibly complex. Just looking at the EEG is not enough to get to the bottom of it. We can “see” your brain much more clearly when we use sophisticated computerized analysis tools to study your brain’s electrical activity and combine that with what you are reporting as challenges. This process is called quantitative EEG or qEEG. Complicated mathematical and statistical analysis of EEG activity is now a primary tool in neuroscience. It is used in computational neuroscience research centers all over the world to study ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, depression and bipolar disorder, PTSD and other anxiety disorders, learning disabilities, and memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia.
Terminology
Electroencephalography (EEG) is the measurement of electrical patterns at the surface of the scalp, which reflect cortical activity, and are commonly referred to as “brainwaves”.