By Jim Robbins Appears in this month's Psychology Today, June 1998. Music of the Brain Neurofeedback is part hero, and part orphan these days. Far less fashionable than Prozac or Paxil, neurofeedback seems to work by intervening in the realm of frequency.
Frequency is the rate at which electrical charges move through brain cells.
The human brain is measured by four basic frequency ranges. Just above that is theta, around 4 to 8 Hz, a deeply relaxed state. Next is alpha, a slightly less relaxed state, at 8 to 13 Hz. The most rapid brain waves are beta, and they reflect normal waking consciousness. To stabilize the brain, to render it more robust, so that it does not tip easily into overarousal or underarousal.