Brainwave Optimization Associated with Clinical Improvements After Traumatic Brain Injury

Scottsdale, Arizona (PRWEB) April 14, 2014

Brain State Technologies announced today the presentation of results from a case series of 21 individuals with persisting symptoms following traumatic brain injury who enrolled in an open label research study using High-resolution, relational, resonance-based, electroencephalic mirroring (HIRREM), known commercially as Brainwave Optimization, at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Study participants reported improved sleep and fewer symptoms related to depression and post-traumatic stress.

Brainwave Optimization is a noninvasive, computer-guided technology that facilitates self-optimization of the brain by helping individuals achieve a state of deep relaxation. The presentation was made at the International Brain Injury Associations Tenth World Congress on Brain Injury in San Francisco on March 21. The study was conducted at the Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., by Charles H. Tegeler, M.D., professor of neurology, and was made possible by a research grant from The Susanne Marcus Collins Foundation, Inc.

The participants in this case series had histories of traumatic brain injury related to military service, sports, or other accidents. They received an average of 16 HIRREM sessions, 90 minutes each, over 13 days. According to the researchers, use of HIRREM was associated with reduction in self-reported symptoms of insomnia, depression, and post-traumatic stress. Additionally, it was associated with increased heart rate variability.

Heart rate variability provides a measure of the hearts ability to adjust its rate of beating, to speed up, or to slow, in response to new circumstances and stress conditions. Studies have shown that individuals with traumatic brain injury have reduced heart rate variability and, therefore, may have greater difficulty adapting to new circumstances or stresses.

Imbalance of brain frequencies and amplitudes may be seen in conditions such as trauma or stress, for which insomnia is often an accompanying symptom, said Tegeler. This new technology is intended to allow the brain, on its own, to relax, and to shift towards improved balance, which may result in improved symptoms. Results of the study will be published as an abstract in a forthcoming issue of the journal Brain Injury. This study is one of many that have been conducted at Wake Forest Baptist to investigate the role and value of Brainwave Optimization for a variety of health objectives.

Traumatic brain injury can have devastating consequences and may include a host of associated symptoms, including chronic headache, dizziness, insomnia, depression, cognitive difficulty, and impaired work functionality and social relationships. Direct costs associated with the treatment of TBI are estimated at $76.3 billion annually in the United States alone according to Finkelstein, E at al. The Incidence and Economic Burden of Injuries in the United States. New York (NY): Oxford University Press, 2006 Coronado, VG et al. The epidemiology and prevention of TBI, in press, 2012.

Lee Gerdes, the founder and CEO of Brain State Technologies, developed Brainwave Optimization (technically known as High-resolution, Relational, Resonance-based, Electroencephalic Mirroring, or HIRREM), in 2001 after suffering his own traumatic brain injury during a violent assault with a baseball bat in 1992.

Gerdes found, both from his own injury and from reviewing the data recorded from others, that recovery from trauma appeared to be associated with more optimized patterns of brainwave activity, especially improved balance between the left and right sides of the brain. Finding a way to help the brain undertake that self-optimizationled him to found Brain State Technologies to further develop and promote Brainwave Optimization.

As someone with a background in engineering, it struck me that by turning brainwaves into sound frequencies, we could allow the brain to perceive itself in a kind of computer-guided, sound-based mirror, and that this might help the brain get the information it needed to make its own self-adjustments, says Gerdes.

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Brainwave Optimization Associated with Clinical Improvements After Traumatic Brain Injury