IM Parents must watch video.

This is what IM is all about - changing and building neuronal networks with in the entire brain and particularly in the cerebellum. This 12 minutes is worth your time. You may appreciate the scientific nature of the video but mostly it will change the firing of neuronal networks with in your own brain so you can understand IM more thoroughly. Please watch.

ANTs - Automatic Negative Thoughts

Dr. Amen talks about ANTs in this video.  This is the seventh video of his speech, you need to go about 1:07 seconds into video to get to the ANTs part. Great video series! Watch it!

My Child is constantly making noises.

Last week I saw a student who's mom reported that her son is constantly making noises.

Exploring Time: The Brain's Basal Ganglia

Using an MRI, a Team from Duke University is studying timing and the basal ganglia lights up. This set of nuclei is responsible for monitoring ALL of the brain. The basal ganglia is our timing center, our brain's conductor. See this short clip from the Science Channel here. 

OCD thought to be connected with Basal Ganglia dysfunction.

This Study showed individuals with OCD had 'soft signs' of the illness. These are subtle physical differences, not just 'mental' differences from the typical population. Dysfunction is the basal ganglia part of the brain is thought to play a role in OCD,. This theory is supported by the soft signs found. Under fMRI, the basal ganglia is one of the brain regions that lights up with IM training. IM exercises the basal ganglia, maybe that's why we frequently see improvement with OCD symptoms after IM training.

Non Verbal Learning Disabilities behavior relationship to time and space

UC Davis MIND Institute has another great presentation. by Dr. Tony Simon titled Problems with Space and Time.....   Specifically this is about a specific population of children with spatio-temporal challenges. These children are often labeled as having Non Verbal Learning Disabilities, NVLD.

Though this research is not IM research, it shows that some challenges, often labeled as NVLD, are directly identified as weak resolution of time and space, the exact processing that IM impacts. Specific areas of the brain are implicated as well as networks with in the brain. Some of the areas of the brain that Dr. Simon mentions are the same sub-cortical brain areas that  MRI's have shown to be activated in IM including the cerebellum and the basal ganglia. He ends with the statement that "there is plenty of evidence that typical spatio-temporal systems are 'plastic' " and the we can 'fix' the problem. Practice and stimulation is what is needed to change and improve these processes.

Processing Speed located throughout the brain

Many individuals gain signifantly in the speed at which they complete tasks after IM training. This  study  may help explain why.

Brain Regions involved in Timing

This fMRI research paper show what parts of the brain are used in timing.

Abstract. Cognitive time management is an important aspect of human behaviour and cognition that has so far been understudied. Functional imaging studies in recent years have tried to identify the neural correlates of several timing functions, ranging from simple motor tapping to higher cognitive time estimation functions.

Anticipation - What's it look like in the brain

Recent fMRI's research shows anticipation, a very complex mental task, activates many parts of the brain that scientists hadn't expected to be activated. Many of these areas also have been shown to fire in IM tasks. Click here for the article.

Think about it, in IM you are anticipating every single hit,  initiating another choice, analyzing the feedback, and planning a response.  All these mental tasks are considered executive functions - higher level thought processes that I often see gains in with IM.  Parents report gains in these more often a few months out of IM  rather than immediately after IM  usually.  Sometimes it takes building the support skills first and then these higher level tasks can come on line a bit later. 

How do we get from intention to action?

How is it that we intend to not eat that chocolate, yet when it appears before us, we drop it into our mouths? What is intention's connection to action? Dr. Ann Graybiel's UC Davis MIND Institute's October, 2008 Distinquished Presenter discusses this question. During her 6 pm presentation, my mind was firing wildly on how this new research is deeply connected to IM. The Basal Ganglia, shown by Dr. Neil Alpiner to be one of the deep structures in the brain activated by IM, has long been known to be the area of release and inhibition of movement.

Basal Ganglia and OCD/Tourette's

I see a significant number of students with OCD or Tourette's. This article links PANDAS, a recently discovered neurological disorder due to strep infections, to a part of the brain called the basal ganglia. This is a quote from the page about PANDAS at the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health): "The children usually have dramatic, "overnight" onset of symptoms, including motor or vocal tics, obsessions, and/or compulsions. This abrupt onset is generally preceeded by a Strep throat infection. One part of the brain that is affected in PANDAS is the basal ganglia"

Dr. Neil Alpiner's paper showing MRI's of IM trained individuals showed that the basal ganglia is one of the areas that IM seems to impact. Maybe that is the reason that we sometimes see a lessening of OCD bahavior or tics with IM training. Whether or not PANDAS is the cause of the tics may not be as important as the fact that the part of the brain where the tics seem to originate may be stimulated through IM training, "healing" the injury somewhat.