Summary and an Intimation of the Future The results described above portend many new developments in terms of taking advantage of the ability of the brain to remediate itself. We are surely just at the beginning of discovering how this new tool of EEG training can be best applied in a particular individual. The boundary of our knowledge horizon is increasing rapidly, like ripples on a pond, raising more questions than we have so far answered.
The results bespeak a general property of the human brain, which is learning. All parts of the brain are intrinsically responsive to information. That is the essential function of a nervous system. It is similarly obvious that the brain routinely responds to information about itself. The new findings indicate that it can also respond to information about itself which is provided externally, by biofeedback. The implications of this appear quite boundless at this point.
We see the impact of this training particularly strongly in the most severe conditions with which brains are afflicted: epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, and the dementia of the aged. We see it impacting also on the largest issues confronting the field of mental health: depression and anxiety disorders. We see it helping with some of our society's most vexing problems: irrational violence, criminal behavior, and addictive behavior. And we see it dealing with so many of the learning problems which lead to unproductive lives. The efficacy of the training for some of the most disturbing behaviors we see in our fellow man (irrational aggressive behavior; sociopathy) implies that these behaviors are brain-based. They do not come from a deficient force of "will". In fact, the more extreme the behavior, the more likely it is that we are dealing with a neurological impairment. Fortunately, these impairments don't appear to be hard-wired.
In the last year we have seen a surge of interest by mental health professionals in this technique. We will soon see it available in many different settings. The impact of our emerging ability to train the brain is incalculable for our society. Clearly, this will have to be part of any national health plan which meaningfully addresses the problems people actually have. EEG biofeedback could lead to significant reduction in health care costs, as we address the underlying problems rather than the physical symptoms they give rise to. The frontier of health is, in large part, the frontier of the brain.
