NASA technology lets brain watch itself work
<p>Kim Birkhimer, CNT, is a Sandpoint neurofeedback practitioner who has watched the modality regain its credibility after being relegated to “fad” status in the 1960s and ‘70s. (Photo by DAVID GUNTER)</p>
SANDPOINT — The brain, as it turns out, is a self-absorbed little machine. Powerful beyond the ability of modern science to measure, it is also terribly predictable when it comes to this one factor: It loves to watch itself at work.
For the longest time, research in the field that came to be known as “neurofeedback” was limited to NASA and the UCLA Medical School. Ironically, an article in Psychology Today that promised to introduce the non-invasive technique for measuring brain wave activity to the world proved too effective, launching neurofeedback into the lap of pop culture.
The very technology that NASA applied to help astronauts in training learn to maintain focus and stay relaxed was quickly reduced to a sort of parlor game for hipsters looking for an electronically induced “experience.”
“In the 1960s and ‘70s, the hippies got a hold of it and it lost all credibility,” said Kim Birkhimer, practitioner with BrainPaint Neurofeedback in Sandpoint. “It’s slowly but surely getting its credibility back. Foundations and institutions are using it now — psychologists are using it.”
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