Len Ochs Protocol

Hi All.

My first post on this lovely bubbly forum! Looking forward to chatting with you all and hopefully find some answers along the way. Seems like a really friendly place!

Firstly a bit of an introduction. I'm from the UK and have been interested in brain wave entrainment/biofeedback/neurofeedback for some time (on and off). I purchased a Procyon over the weekend and I will be picking it up this morning :)

To cut a long story shortish. I went through some childhood stuff and it probably pushed me into several bad habits including inability to be present and being disconnected from my emotions. During uni I lost the plot a bit and got into recreational drugs like mdma & ecstasy. I'm 37 now and since becoming a father (2 year old girl!) i've grown a fair bit in the some departments I was lacking in (I still feel like I can do a lot better). I still suffer from mental fog/attention issues and my memory is akin to someone with dementia. I have been pretty much getting by at work but have never excelled. I'm not sure when the memory/attention issues started but they probably began during my escapist clubbing days at uni! Ho hum :S

Anyhoo... I played with neurofeedback about 10 years ago but didn't have much success getting the equipment to be consistent. I got into binaural beats but didn't find them effective for what I thought I needed (beta?). Not sure why, but it felt like the beats weren't strong/effective enough or maybe my brain just got bored lol :) A couple of years back I got into mindfulness meditation and it was quite profound. It's changed my life a in many ways but I still don't think i'm hitting the depth that I am capable of hitting. So.... I thought I'd try AVS, and I stumbled on this website! After researching the tool more I've come to the conclusion that there is a lot of potential here, mainly because of the potency of vision + audio vs just audio for entrainment. Plus the ability to add affirmations takes it to a whole new level

I watched some of the videos you have uploaded onto youtube. I found the Prof Len Ochs and Dr Julian Isaacs presentations particularly interesting... Specifically Len Ochs in his 3rd video at 4:21 talks about a protocol that he has used which involved AVS and neurofeedback to resolve issues in people with head trauma (plus a whole host of other problems). The protocol, he says, is simply "I don't try to speed the brainwaves up or I don't try to speed them down. What I do is I alternately speed the brainwaves up, slow them down..." repeat... He says that when the brain goes through trauma, it secretes chemicals to protect itself in the short term, but the chemicals effect the brain function in the longer term too. Then brain frequency becomes restricted and less pliable. I'm hoping that this is the problem I've got and that the trauma I have caused to myself *may* be repairable.

Has anyone else heard of Prof Ochs protocol? Does anyone know of any sessions that are available which follow this 'up/down' protocol? I believe that one cycle (up > down) is very short at only 1 minute. Is this short cycle advisable? Any idea on how to do the the frequency sweeps? I.e.

Down (1min) 22Hz > 8Hz
Up (1min) 8Hz > 22Hz

Any thoughts on the protocol or any other suggestions are whole heartedly welcomed!!!

Big love,
Sunny

I have created a protocol for creating plasticity in the brain using that concept. You will need Mind Workstation Professional and the Emotiv Epoc headset. This might seem like a hefty investment, but as I am sure you know, it is a drop in the bucket compared to what doctors charge for neurofeedback sessions. More info can be found here http://www.mindupdate.com/2011/12/ne...city-protocol/

Greetings! We built some prototypes using a modified Ochs protocol (which is intended to increase EEG flexibility) for a couple Dept of Education SBIR grant studies back in the mid 90s. Single channel EEG (frontal electrode) and the range was 13-22 Hz; the system measured EEG amplitudes via FFT and would stimulate 1 Hz above the dominent frequency for 1 min, then 1 Hz below, the next, for 22 minutes (as I recall). The test group in the first study had up to 10 IQ point gains (verbal), which remained when we re-tested them in phase II, 16 months later. Earlier studies with just light and sound using a 12/18 Hz protocol (Procyon sessions 7 and 8) gained 6 IQ points on average. Both studies were of teenagers, mainly boys, with ADHD. In general, stimulation in the 13-22 Hz band can help lift the fog... be sure to use your new Procyon at least 20 min or so a day, and give it at least 20-30 sessions to see what effects it might be having on your memory, concentration, etc. One recent study suggests that 10 Hz alpha visual stim can boost memory in the elderly, while a large Italian study showed that 10-13 Hz ramping can do the same (in the elderly). Since you're not elderly, try the beta stim first... :-)

Enjoy your Procyon!

-Robert

Quote:

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Originally Posted by brewmasher

I have created a protocol for creating plasticity in the brain using that concept. You will need Mind Workstation Professional and the Emotiv Epoc headset. This might seem like a hefty investment, but as I am sure you know, it is a drop in the bucket compared to what doctors charge for neurofeedback sessions. More info can be found here http://www.mindupdate.com/2011/12/ne...city-protocol/

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Hi Brewmasher,

That looks amazing! I've actually got a mind tuner 2 channel eeg which I bought years back but couldn't get it to work, think I had bioexplorer software. The Epoc looks like it's light years ahead! Thanks a bunch for copying your work and the Olmstead study in, that's exactly the kind of information I've been looking for. Unfortunately my budget can't withstand another hit for the next couple of months and so I was hoping on creating a program just based on Procyon (for now)...

I had a flick through the Olmstead dissertation you mentioned and it doesn't look like an EEG was used in that? I assume you were trying to increase the efficacy of your implementation by using an EEG, like Len Ochs? Do you think I can achieve similar results without EEG? Do you mind if I ask about the success of your implementation?

For easy ref, this is what I dug out from the Olmstead study:

The AVS system consisted of the Pro Tutor device, headphones, white full spectrum eyeglasses, and a
cassette or CD player with a selection of Walt Disney story soundtracks. The Pro Tutor device was set at
50% to full intensity in both light and sound controls depending on participant comfort level. A
microchip was programed by this investigator to activate and control the frequency of the flickering
lights and tones, which begin at 14 Hz and increased every 5 minutes to achieve 40 Hz The alternating
program began at 40 Hz and decreased every 5 minutes until it reached 14 Hz. The AVS sessions were
alternated from a 35-minute Excitatory Program (14 Hz increasing to 40 Hz) to a 35-minute Inhibitory
Program (40 Hz To 14 Hz).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robert Austin

Greetings! We built some prototypes using a modified Ochs protocol (which is intended to increase EEG flexibility) for a couple Dept of Education SBIR grant studies back in the mid 90s. Single channel EEG (frontal electrode) and the range was 13-22 Hz; the system measured EEG amplitudes via FFT and would stimulate 1 Hz above the dominent frequency for 1 min, then 1 Hz below, the next, for 22 minutes (as I recall). The test group in the first study had up to 10 IQ point gains (verbal), which remained when we re-tested them in phase II, 16 months later. Earlier studies with just light and sound using a 12/18 Hz protocol (Procyon sessions 7 and 8) gained 6 IQ points on average. Both studies were of teenagers, mainly boys, with ADHD. In general, stimulation in the 13-22 Hz band can help lift the fog... be sure to use your new Procyon at least 20 min or so a day, and give it at least 20-30 sessions to see what effects it might be having on your memory, concentration, etc. One recent study suggests that 10 Hz alpha visual stim can boost memory in the elderly, while a large Italian study showed that 10-13 Hz ramping can do the same (in the elderly). Since you're not elderly, try the beta stim first... :-)

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Great info in there, thanks Robert! So... this has got me questioning my plan a bit as I'm thrown by the protocol you mention.

"stimulate 1 Hz above the dominent frequency for 1 min, then 1 Hz below, the next (frequency?), for 22 minutes"

How do I know what my dominant frequency(s)? is, would I need EEG to check what it is at the time? Would I be ramping to 1hz above/below dominant frequency slowly or jumping straight there? Also, Olmsted mention having separate excitatory and inhibitory sessions with 1 x 35min excitatory and 1 x 35min inhibitory session per week. Would doing excitatory 12-22hz and inhibitory 22-12hz for 20/40mins per day be too much for my little brain ?

Sunny

This is an EEG controlled AVS feedback loop, so the dominant frequency within this range of FFT frequency bins (1 Hz wide in these studies) is changing from moment to moment. As Brewmasher has helpfully pointed out, you can use Mind Workstation to integrate various biofeedback devices with your Procyon (Enterprise edition needed in some cases). But that introduces another layer of complexity and cost at this stage, so you can get started with your Procyon (and Procyon Editor), creating your own Olmstead variant session, in the 13-22 Hz range up and down as you suggested. I think five minutes for each step is too long, in part because the steps between frequencies would need to be large to fit the number of minutes in the session. Some studies have shown that alpha can be entrained in a matter of a few seconds, while others require more time (and multiple sessions). Half a minute to a minute for each step would be a good place to start, so in the above case, about 1 minute and 0.5 Hz steps for a roughly 20 minute session.

Since there have been a relatively small number of studies of the effects of AVS, the number of experimental protocols have been limited. It's tempting to think that if a given protocol provided a good result, that means the protocol is special. But only a limited set of protocols have been tested in anything approaching a clinical setting, so there is a large field of possible improvements to those protocols, or complete alternatives to them. For example, the late Dr. Thomas Budzynski-a key figure in the history of AVS research-was working with a randomized version of this stimulation approach which he called 'Brain Brightening', with promising results, when he passed away.
This used the same 13-22 Hz band, but the random stimulation was intended to increase overall SMR/beta activity, rather than flexibility (Ochs, Russell), or vary the level of EEG activation (Olmstead, others). My point again is that there is still room for a lot of experimentation in this fascinating field. We'd be delighted if you kept us all posted on your progress!

-Robert

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sunnyd76

Hi Brewmasher,

That looks amazing! I've actually got a mind tuner 2 channel eeg which I bought years back but couldn't get it to work, think I had bioexplorer software. The Epoc looks like it's light years ahead! Thanks a bunch for copying your work and the Olmstead study in, that's exactly the kind of information I've been looking for. Unfortunately my budget can't withstand another hit for the next couple of months and so I was hoping on creating a program just based on Procyon (for now)...

I had a flick through the Olmstead dissertation you mentioned and it doesn't look like an EEG was used in that? I assume you were trying to increase the efficacy of your implementation by using an EEG, like Len Ochs? Do you think I can achieve similar results without EEG? Do you mind if I ask about the success of your implementation?

For easy ref, this is what I dug out from the Olmstead study:

The AVS system consisted of the Pro Tutor device, headphones, white full spectrum eyeglasses, and a
cassette or CD player with a selection of Walt Disney story soundtracks. The Pro Tutor device was set at
50% to full intensity in both light and sound controls depending on participant comfort level. A
microchip was programed by this investigator to activate and control the frequency of the flickering
lights and tones, which begin at 14 Hz and increased every 5 minutes to achieve 40 Hz The alternating
program began at 40 Hz and decreased every 5 minutes until it reached 14 Hz. The AVS sessions were
alternated from a 35-minute Excitatory Program (14 Hz increasing to 40 Hz) to a 35-minute Inhibitory
Program (40 Hz To 14 Hz).




Great info in there, thanks Robert! So... this has got me questioning my plan a bit as I'm thrown by the protocol you mention.

"stimulate 1 Hz above the dominent frequency for 1 min, then 1 Hz below, the next (frequency?), for 22 minutes"

How do I know what my dominant frequency(s)? is, would I need EEG to check what it is at the time? Would I be ramping to 1hz above/below dominant frequency slowly or jumping straight there? Also, Olmsted mention having separate excitatory and inhibitory sessions with 1 x 35min excitatory and 1 x 35min inhibitory session per week. Would doing excitatory 12-22hz and inhibitory 22-12hz for 20/40mins per day be too much for my little brain ?

Sunny

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Thanks for getting back to me so quickly (and sorting out my verified status!)

Ahh yes, I saw the Brain Brightening session in the sessions area. Looks like a decent alternative!

So for the Olmstead protocol would you just create a single section/ramp from 13 to 22hz or would you do it in multiple sections (not sure if section is the right term!)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sunnyd76

Hi Brewmasher,

That looks amazing! I've actually got a mind tuner 2 channel eeg which I bought years back but couldn't get it to work, think I had bioexplorer software. The Epoc looks like it's light years ahead! Thanks a bunch for copying your work and the Olmstead study in, that's exactly the kind of information I've been looking for. Unfortunately my budget can't withstand another hit for the next couple of months and so I was hoping on creating a program just based on Procyon (for now)...

I had a flick through the Olmstead dissertation you mentioned and it doesn't look like an EEG was used in that? I assume you were trying to increase the efficacy of your implementation by using an EEG, like Len Ochs? Do you think I can achieve similar results without EEG? Do you mind if I ask about the success of your implementation?

For easy ref, this is what I dug out from the Olmstead study:

The AVS system consisted of the Pro Tutor device, headphones, white full spectrum eyeglasses, and a
cassette or CD player with a selection of Walt Disney story soundtracks. The Pro Tutor device was set at
50% to full intensity in both light and sound controls depending on participant comfort level. A
microchip was programed by this investigator to activate and control the frequency of the flickering
lights and tones, which begin at 14 Hz and increased every 5 minutes to achieve 40 Hz The alternating
program began at 40 Hz and decreased every 5 minutes until it reached 14 Hz. The AVS sessions were
alternated from a 35-minute Excitatory Program (14 Hz increasing to 40 Hz) to a 35-minute Inhibitory
Program (40 Hz To 14 Hz).

---

Neuroprogrammer 3 has a session cloning the Olmstead protocol. You can download a free trial here http://www.ayrmetes.com/NP3.html. The session is the gamma session found in the General Brainwave folder. This is the Excite session. The Inhibit session follows the same pattern, only reversed from 40Hz to 15Hz I expanded it by starting at delta frequencies and using EEG driving 1 Hz above for the Excite session, and 1 Hz below for the inhibit.

I have also created a protocol for NP3 that can be used with the Procyon and Thoughtstream for those without an EEG device. If your interested, let me know and I will send you a copy.

Hi Brewmasher. Thanks for the info. I would love to try out your procyon protocol (I'll PM you my email). I'm just looking for some success and i will be on the road to justify a bigger purchase of NP3 and the Emotiv Epoc. Btw, you mentioned in your first post that your Emotiv Epoc based protocol requires Mind Manager. Does it also work with NP3?

Thanks
Sunny

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sunnyd76

Hi Brewmasher. Thanks for the info. I would love to try out your procyon protocol (I'll PM you my email). I'm just looking for some success and i will be on the road to justify a bigger purchase of NP3 and the Emotiv Epoc. Btw, you mentioned in your first post that your Emotiv Epoc based protocol requires Mind Manager. Does it also work with NP3?

Thanks
Sunny

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The Epoc sessions require Mind Workstation, which the Transparent software for professionals and therapists. You can download a free trial from the same site given earlier. It is quite a bit more than NP3, but Transparent will upgrade you if you want to try NP3 first.

I will email you the sessions. They will be NP3 sessions, so you will have to have the software (the trial version will work) to open them.

Many thanks!

Why is Mind Workstation Professional required for this?

Here is a discussion on this topic with the MindPlace owner, Robert Austin and the creator of the MWS plasticity protocol, Joe Verona. http://www.mindplacesupport.com/foru...-Ochs-Protocol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by neuroasis

Here is a discussion on this topic with the MindPlace owner, Robert Austin and the creator of the MWS plasticity protocol, Joe Verona. http://www.mindplacesupport.com/foru...-Ochs-Protocol

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Hi Scott:

That link points to the top of this forum thread. Is it supposed to point somewhere else? My question is why the Professional version of Mind Workstation is needed as opposed to the standard version. When I compared the two versions the add-ons for the pro version did not seem to justify its $100 added expense. I'm totally funding this project out of pocket (grants will more than likely follow), but money is getting tight.

John

Sorry, I lost context when I went to the end of your posting and it only showed the last page.

Let me open that session and see. I'll update this thread then. Probably it includes some engine plugins like the Formula or Timer. These are very useful and justify the cost. Does Transparent have academic pricing?

Right, he uses the Timer engine to vary the frequencies every 2 minutes. For example in Neuroplasticity - Maintain it is +-0.5hz. There are other ways to do this that wouldn't require that engine though. Have to look at it in more detail.

Ok, so the attached session is doing what the original one does, that is, every 2 minutes adding or subtracting 0.5hz in succession from the entrainment output over an 18 minute period. The Timer and Graph engines are removed though. It should work with the basic MWS version. I can't test this as I have Enterprise.

It is not nearly as clear what is happening in this version as in Joe's version. The Timer engine is a better way to do it.

But what I am doing is using 2 formula engines, a Data Table, and just for this test a Random engine. The Data Table holds the 2 values 0.5 and -0.5. The first formula engine reads this table. It updates every 2 minutes. The 2nd formula engine takes the output of formula engine 1 and adds a random number to it, then controls the entrainment track with its output. The random number is a placeholder for the EPOC dominant frequency. I have an EPOC and will test this session with it but it is too much to set up at the moment.

The EPOC engine with Joe's settings is present but disabled. To convert to using that engine just change the RAN_OUT variable in formula 2 to SENSOR_OUT.

So, it is possible but not pretty.

Scott

Quote:

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Originally Posted by neuroasis

Ok, so the attached session is doing what the original one does, that is, every 2 minutes adding or subtracting 0.5hz in succession from the entrainment output over an 18 minute period. The Timer and Graph engines are removed though. It should work with the basic MWS version. I can't test this as I have Enterprise.

It is not nearly as clear what is happening in this version as in Joe's version. The Timer engine is a better way to do it.

But what I am doing is using 2 formula engines, a Data Table, and just for this test a Random engine. The Data Table holds the 2 values 0.5 and -0.5. The first formula engine reads this table. It updates every 2 minutes. The 2nd formula engine takes the output of formula engine 1 and adds a random number to it, then controls the entrainment track with its output. The random number is a placeholder for the EPOC dominant frequency. I have an EPOC and will test this session with it but it is too much to set up at the moment.

The EPOC engine with Joe's settings is present but disabled. To convert to using that engine just change the RAN_OUT variable in formula 2 to SENSOR_OUT.

So, it is possible but not pretty.

Scott

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What it's doing Scott is using the Epoc to find the particular dominant frequency for that user, whatever that might be. It then sets the entrainment .5 Hz above that frequency for 2 min., leading the brainwave patterns up, and then .5 Hz below the frequency, leading the brainwave pattern down. This pushes and pulls at the existing dominant frequencies, hopefully increasing brain plasticity.

You would need the Epoc to determine the dominant frequency. Your session would closely mimic the protocol, if set in the estimated dominant frequency range.

Quote:

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That link points to the top of this forum thread. Is it supposed to point somewhere else? My question is why the Professional version of Mind Workstation is needed as opposed to the standard version. When I compared the two versions the add-ons for the pro version did not seem to justify its $100 added expense. I'm totally funding this project out of pocket (grants will more than likely follow), but money is getting tight.

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IMO, the graphing capability alone in the Professional version is worth the price of admission. The Timer engine opens a wide range of unique sessions. Send Transparent an email. I'm sure they will give you some kind of a discount to support your cause.

I think that this 'conversion' session points to how flexible Mind Workstation actually is. You can do just about anything by combining various engines and formulas. Some ways are much easier and clearer than others. This is a good case. There are many ways to do the same thing. I can think of at least one maybe 2 more ways to do this. If I were designing it, because I have the Enterprise version, I would essentially do what Joe did.

I agree about the Graphing engine justifying the upgrade. If you are working with biosensors then you must graph them. Otherwise, you have no record of the session and what stimulation was delivered.

Another neat thing with the Graphing implementation, you can export from this tool to several formats, including Excel, for analysis and reporting.