What is Brain Mapping?
QEEG (Quantitative Electroencephalogram) or Brain Mapping is an essential diagnostic procedure. It is used in evaluating Traumatic Brain Injuries, ADD/ADHD, Autism, Learning Disorders, OCD, Anger and emotional disorders, Anxiety, and Depression. A brain map will give us insight as to whether the symptoms the person feels are neurologically based or not. If these symptoms have a neurologically origin, then there is a high probability of treatment success using Neurofeedback and Functional Neurology; our comprehensive, medical treatment program.
19 Sensors are placed on the patient’s head with a jell placed between the sensors and scalp to make sure there is good conduction to allow for accurate readings. Brain wave activity is then recorded at these 19 different sites on the surface of the head. This procedure is noninvasive and painless. Much like a thermometer which only records your temperature but does not affect your temperature, the Brainmap only records the electrical activity of the brain; it does not do anything to the brain.
The Brain Mapping will detect if any area of the brain is not working properly or misfiring. The patient’s Brain map is processed and compared to a “normative database” that was developed after mapping thousands of highly functioning people. This “normative database” is used to compare the patient’s brain with that of other people of a similar age. Any deviation of how the patient’s brain is functioning to how it should be functioning is noted and displayed on the map. This normative database is FDA approved and is the best in the world.
QEEG is very similar to a physician performing an x-ray on a patient with a painful neck and upper back to determine what is wrong and how one should go about treating the patient. Without a Brain Map, a clinician cannot truly know if the symptoms are neurologically based, or simply psychological/behavioral. If neurological, the Brain map determines which brainwaves are abnormal and which site(s) needs treatment.
Below is a page of a patient’s Brain Map after being struck by a weight on her head. The red areas show exactly where she was struck by the weight. These red areas show a disturbance to this region of the brain. Ideally the whole head should be green following a brain map. Neurofeedback training can address and train this abnormally functioning region returning this area to a more normal functioning capacity.
