Who We Help

ADHD

ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. For a person who is struggling with this disorder, it often look like the inability to focus or concentrate, becoming easily distracted, overwhelmed or frustrated. Attention and focus problems can cause anger outbursts, difficulty completing tasks, restlessness and the inability to socially engage or connect.

In a person with ADHD, the areas of the brain that control attention and focus may have too much slow activity in some areas and may have too much rapid activity in other areas of the brain. Neurofeedback helps the person learn how to take control through reducing the too-fast and too-slow brain patterns that occur in the brain of someone with ADHD. Neurofeedback allows people to work directly on the problem by training the brain to become calmer, more focused, and less impulsive.

Anxiety

Because of our environment and the ongoing stressors that impact the body every second of every day, the body can become overloaded, and our brainwaves can become abnormal. This most commonly occurs as a result of overstimulation. This irregularity, often found in people suffering with anxiety, can create abnormal responses to incoming stimuli.

Helping people learn to calm themselves is the most effective solution for anxiety, and gives sufferers hope as they take control of their lives. Neurofeedback is one of the quickest, easiest, and most efficient ways to teach people how to help themselves. Brain training teaches the brain to make healthier patterns on a more consistent basis, so anxiety responses are avoided, and a calmer brain stays more in control. Learning this life skill decreases the need for dependence upon medications and improves quality of life.

Autism

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a condition related to brain development that impacts how a person perceives and socializes with others. The symptoms of ASD typically begin to emerge around age 2 or 3. These symptoms may include the inability to perceive sights and sounds adequately, resistance to change in daily routines, poor motor skills, repetitive behaviors or movements, hyper-focus on one thing, and loud outbursts.

Clinically observed improvements from neurofeedback include:

Initiation of touch and contact
Heightened awareness of feelings and emotion
Reduced emotional outbursts
Increased stability and calmness
Clear speech patterns
Better responses to parental and teacher instructions
Increased imaginative thought
Decreased hyperactivity and impulsivity
Heightened levels of focus and attention
Increased tolerance to change
Diminished anxiety
Improvement of social skills

Neurofeedback improves the quality of life for both people with ASD and their families. With ASD, the brain is dysregulated. Studies indicate that individuals with ASD have excessive connectivity in some areas of the brain and deficient connectivity in others. Neurofeedback is a very effective way of stabilizing and regulating brain function. By facilitating improvement in areas of abnormal connectivity and improving the functioning of the brain, symptoms are reduced, and positive outcomes result. It not only improves cortical function, but also teaches self-regulation. It has no long-term side effects and offers sustainable results.

Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury or TBI is a type of injury to the brain. It can disrupt how the brain functions and lead to cognitive and emotional symptoms. TBI's can vary from mild to severe, depending on how and where the head was struck, and the magnitude of the impact to the head. Sometimes milder but frequent blows to the head can cause mild traumatic brain injuries as well.

Neurofeedback cannot repair damage to the brain’s physical structure, but it can use neuroplasticity to exercise, restore brain function, and develop new neural pathways. During the early stages of a traumatic brain injury, neurofeedback can be helpful with the head pain, as well as with nausea, irritability, mental confusion, and sleep difficulties. Over the longer term, neurofeedback can be helpful with energy level, vigilance, effort fatigue, cognitive dysfunction traceable to the injury, sensory hypersensitivity, and executive function. Eventually, memory function should recover as well.

Chronic Pain

Neurofeedback can influence the processing of pain. By learning self-regulation of brain functions, the electrical activity of areas of the brain involved in pain processing, pain perception, or pain memory can be modified. This allows the reduction or even elimination of pain, along with simultaneous conditions, like depression or anxiety.

Chronic pain can also create changes in the functional organization of the brain. Neurofeedback can help alter the connectivity between brain regions. This creates lasting changes in neuronal networks that counterbalance the changes that result from chronic pain.

Pain is a subjective feeling that can be influenced by sensory, affective, and cognitive factors. Chronic pain is pain that lasts for over three months. The pain can be there all the time, or it may come and go. It can happen anywhere in your body. Chronic pain can have a widespread impact on overall brain function as both cognitive and psychological factors play key roles in the development and management of pain.

Depression

If you have been struggling with depression, you’re not alone. More than 19 million adults suffer from depression. If you are feeling overwhelmed, worn down, fatigued, sad, isolated, foggy brained, or disconnected, these are classic signs and symptoms that accompany depression.

This disorder is more than just the “blues,” or being “down in the dumps”. We all experience feelings of sadness from time to time, and this is normal and healthy. The problem arises when the sadness doesn’t stop, it doesn’t lift, and it is not just temporary. This is when the problems can begin to impact every area of your life from eating and sleeping to your work, relationships, and your sense of self.

In dealing with depression, many Neurofeedback therapists place an electrode on the scalp over each side of the brain and train the individual to increase alpha brain waves on the right side while reducing it on the left. As the left side of the brain becomes more active, individuals begin to feel more positive in their moods. The abnormal brainwave activity diminishes over a period of training sessions that improve brainwave patterns. When function is improved, mood is improved, and outcomes are optimized.

Insomnia

Chronic, or recurrent, insomnia is a widespread condition affecting nearly 10-15% of the global population. Insomnia can disrupt your daily life by causing irritability, exhaustion, tiredness, and difficulty staying focused. If being tired all of the time isn’t bad enough, this affliction is also believed to be a risk factor for other diseases, including obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Until recently, insomnia was studied from a behavioral perspective, but as this problem grows, new research and insights have been discovered. Recent studies suggest that in cases of insomnia, the brain is unable to process information properly due to cortical hyperarousal. The brains of insomniacs may be in a constant state of “on” and continue to operate at high levels even though it should be dialing down to recharge at night. When insomniacs are finally able to drift off, for example, their brain activity is layered with more waking, or arousal patterns in comparison to good sleepers. This creates abnormal brainwave function.

Neurofeedback has a powerful ability to positively impact sleep because it works on the areas of the brain that allow and regulate sleep. With neurofeedback, most people can train their brain to allow sleep again by rewarding it for creating healthier patterns. Sleep can improve surprisingly quickly for clients who have seen numerous specialists and struggled with sleep for years. Falling asleep and staying asleep is clearly the job of the brain.

Memory Loss

If you are beginning to notice the signs of brain fog, forgetfulness, declining cognitive function, mixing up your words, asking the same questions repeatedly or taking longer to perform normal tasks: these are all signs and symptoms of memory loss. These are the early warning signs of abnormal brainwave function that is often associated with the inability to process information optimally.

Migraines

Migraines and headaches can be triggered due to many factors; ranging from hormonal imbalance, light sensitivity, allergies and dehydration to neuro-metabolic issues. This leaves your brain in a high state of stress and imbalance. The results are a variety of symptoms that take their toll on your life including inability to focus, mood swings and throbbing pain.

Neurofeedback is a scientifically proven system that retrains the brain to create new patterns and responses to incoming triggers and stressors. This new response improves brainwave activity and function. The result is a calmer, happier, healthier brain that has fewer symptoms and flare ups.

Studies have shown more than a 54% rate of total cessation of pain and symptoms and 99% reported a decrease in pain and symptoms. When balance and function is restored, your outcomes are optimized, and health improved.

Peak Performance

Whether you are a professional athlete, a top executive, a weekend warrior, or a student athlete, you know that peak performance is essential to your success. But how do you achieve peak performance? The more that is at stake, the greater the need for not only physical training, but brain training for increased brain health as well.

Let’s face it, performing at your peak comes with high demands. These physical, mental and emotional impacts often trigger the fight or flight response within your body, which will steal your ability to succeed. When you are in a prolonged state of stress due to the high demands of performing at optimal states, your brain function is impacted. The longer the impact, the greater the imbalance, which leads to decreased function and performance.

PTSD & Trauma

PTSD and Trauma often occurs after a stressful or traumatic event leaving a wake of symptoms in its path. From mental stress and negative moods to fear, guilt and shame. The emotional toll of these symptoms impacts daily lives, careers, and relationships. As a result, most people who suffer from PTSD & trauma are looking for an effective way to treat their symptoms so they can get back to living a normal life.

Research shows that the traumatic stress experienced by those suffering from PTSD & Trauma has a lasting change on the brain. It affects the amygdala involved in emotional memory, the hippocampus responsible for long term memory, and prefrontal cortex which modulates emotion. Each of these centers change, negatively impacting brainwave function. Current treatment options include talk therapy and medication, but each have their limitations. Talk therapy can take a very long time to resolve the trauma as many sufferers aren’t always aware of the trauma. Medication comes with many side effects and is unable to restore healthy brainwave function.

The specific areas of the brain affected by PTSD & trauma can also be targeted and retrained to produce healthier patterns. This retraining creates a relaxation in the brain and teaches it new ways to handle stress. As brainwaves are rebalanced and improved, function improves, leading to better mood, sleep, cognitive function and adaptability in daily life. As the areas of the brain improve, it has been possible to significantly reduce medications as a person with PTSD & Trauma begins to maintain a calm state on their own.

Substance Abuse

Substance Abuse Disorders are viewed as primary, chronic diseases of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by other behaviors.

Contact

218-368-0695

braincoreofnorthernmn@outlook.com

Hours

Mon - Thu

8:00 am – 6:00 pm

Friday

8:00 am – 5:00 pm

Address

524 Kingwood Street

Brainerd, MN 54601

Sat - Sun

Closed