4                                                                                                Brainwave Connections                                                                    Year’s End 2006
Text Box: Product Review The ANI Z DLL by Dr. Robert Thatcher & Applied Neurosciences In this column, we usually review a book or journal. Such resources provide important knowledge and understanding, useful in guiding clinical as well as research plans and procedures. In this issue, we look at a software product that embodies its own knowledge base and automation, thus providing expertise on the spot, and in a functional form. Dr. Robert Thatcher (Applied Neurosciences, Inc. and the University of Florida) is a clinical researcher who has worked in EEG, brain function, coherence and consciousness, and digital signal processing. He is the author of the NeuroGuide software system that performs offline (post-processed) quantitative and normative analysis of EEG. The ANI DLL takes this work an important step further, in providing real-time feedback in which the targets are “Z scores” instead of conventional EEG metrics. Z Scores are computed and targetable for training protocols, based on the software capabilities and flexibility built into the host EEG hardware and software. BrainMaster is the first to provide this capability in an EEG training system. Z Scores are computed and targetable for absolute and relative power, power ratios, asymmetry, coherence, and phase for 1, 2, or 4 channels. Targets can be combined to provide comprehensive training using auditory or visual feedback, animations, games, DVD’s, etc. In the 4-channel embodiment, 4 brain locations and 6 interconnecting pathways can be trained simultaneously, providing comprehensive whole-brain training. In addition to protocols for training toward normal EEG parameters, targets can be biased for peak-performance applications, deep states training, or other applications. Educational and training opportunities are available through Stress Therapy Solutions, and are also offered at meetings such as AAPB, ISNR, Futurehealth, and the SAN. Text Box: Published by: Stress Therapy Solutions Inc. Publishing Editor: Terri Mrklas Collura Subscription: $50/year; Provided without charge to all Active Affiliates of BrainMaster Technologies, Inc. Website: www.stresstherapysolutions.com Publication: minimum of 4 issues/year Editorial Guidelines: Articles 250 to 2000 words, PC format ASCII (.txt), Rich Text (.rtf), or Microsoft Word1 (.doc). Submit via email to stsinc@pantek.com or send disk or hardcopy to Stress Therapy Solutions Inc., 3401 Enterprise Parkway, Suite 340, Beachwood OH 44122. Phone: 216-766-5707 or 800-447-8052 FAX: 216-439-3015 The publisher reserves the right to accept, reject, and/or edit any article or advertisement, in whole or in part, and assumes no responsibility for validity; nor for mistakes of omission, typographical errors, or photo placement errors, in whole or in part, in advertisements or articles. Brainwave Connections and StressTherapy Solutions Inc.and its staff and/or consultants neither endorse, support, nor assume any liability whatsoever for any product or service advertised or mentioned within. Entire contents copyright © 2006 Stress Therapy Solutions Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher is prohibited. 1 “Microsoft Word” is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation Text Box: Brainwave Connections Text Box: cannot likely trace our connectivity backward in any simple sense of localized, limited heritage. Rather, we necessarily share identity and genetic information with a vast and distributed population that is both widespread and well mixed. The numbers compel it. In other words, the earth is already an island sufficiently small that, over the last millennia, we are already interconnected to an extraordinary degree. Which bears on the theme of connectivity and connectedness. The earth now has on the order of 10 billion inhabitants, which is similar to the number of neurons in a human brain. Is it there that the resemblance ends, or might there be something more ahead? Text Box: family tree also occupy spots on other parts of your tree. That is, if you go back far enough, your mother’s mother’s father’s father’s mother’s mother’s father’s … father could be the same person as your mother’s father’s father’s mother’s mother’s father’s mother’s ... father, and this is very, very common. There is a lot of blending and sharing going on, and to a staggering degree. At the 2000 years-ago mark, the number of putative ancestors is an astonishing 1,152,921,504,606,846,976. This is about a trillion times larger than the population of the earth at that time. The way to resolve this enormous discrepancy is to accept the fact that we are all cousins, and have been, ever since a few thousand hominids set out about 75,00 years ago on the journey we call being human. The very idea that we are separate beings is an illusion. This compels us to recognize that we Text Box: On Personal Connections—From Page 1 Text Box: