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Leading-Edge Research on Multi-Person Neurofeedback

Research with University of Bournemouth

We believe that the body of scientific research evidence for the effectiveness and specificity of neurofeedback for clinical conditions is unequivocal. Effectiveness = does it work; Specificity = we know it is not a placebo. More details here.

So our research focus is on the leading edge, the areas of neurofeedback potential that have not been explored in such a rigorous way, and areas that may hold even more potential for enhancing human performance and collaboration.

Applied Neuroscience Solutions Ltd, BrainTrainUK’s parent company, are industrial sponsor and partner for some leading-edge research into the application of hyperscanning to neurofeedback.

Hyperscanning means monitoring two brains simultaneously, and enables the investigation of how multiple brains act together.

Tod Mikurya

Work has been done in the past on neurofeedback protocols with pairs of people. 

Although never published, Tod Mikurya found that students fell in love with each other when their EEGs were synchronised.

Tod’s personal files were recently catalogued by the US National Library of Medicine. We are in contact with them to explore what they might reveal about this work.

 

Jean Millay published a book of remote viewing experiments after synchronising the brainwaves of pairs of people. 

Studies have been published showing how musicians brainwaves synchronize when playing together, and how mothers and babies brainwaves synchronize whilst gazing into each others’ eyes

The question is how could neurofeedback use this phenomenon to increase connectedness for the benefit of human wellbeing?

We believe this area has significant potential so we have partnered with Bournemouth University to do some leading-edge research. 

Marcia Saul

Marcia Saul is the lead researcher; you can read a summary of the research by clicking on the images below.

We are focusing whether we can remediate social anxiety, which can be a significant issue for many students, the population we have access to at Bournemouth University.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marcia is supervised by Dr Fred Charles and Dr Xun He. Both have published research in EEG. 

So far we have prepared a literature review, and done an experiment using The Prisoners Dilemma to see how the EEGs of a pair of participants varies as they change strategies between collaboration and competition. We can’t say too much about it, as it is to be published at the Brain-Computer Interface Society Conference in Belgium in 2021 which was due to take place in 2020. But I (Stuart Black) was a participant in the study and the results were interesting! I can tell you that I lost in The Prisoners Dilemma exercise. 

We are now designing the next stage of the experiment and this involves creating a realistic animated scenario that the participants in the study will experience.

It is amazing how these researchers are able to create sophisticated animated scenes with the latest technology. This week, the team showed what they had set-up, and explained that animations of people could be broken down into different elements:

  • The envelope – this is the 3D mesh that defines the outline of the animated character
  • The rig – the skeleton bone structure within the envelope
  • The animation – how the bone structures will move on a frame by frame basis

This week we reviewed all of these, and agreed that the animations needed more tuning.

The next stage of the practical experiments are very dependent on the COVID-19 restrictions on campus activities, but we will keep you up to date. 

Stuart Black

July 2020