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.

Theory of Mind or Mentalizing

I just watched Uta Frith's Theory of Mind presentation again and am noting the brain areas she's mentioned in which this process  happens.

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.

Parts of the right hemisphere of the brain implicated in Dyslexia

Parts of the right hemisphere of the brains of people with dyslexia have been shown to differ from those of normal readers. Researchers writing in the open access journal note that in all cases, differences could be seen in either the right cerebellar declive or the right lentiform nucleus. Click here for more information.

IM is considered a cerebellar exercise by many professionals. If the right cerebellar declive is exercised during IM, maybe this is a link to the large improvement in reading often seen through IM.

Body In Space Issues are Related Too

Body in Space Issues May be Related to Conscious and Subconscious processing: You learned your own body in space as a toddler, but you can get a feel for the concept of 'body in space' better if you remember what it felt like when you learned to drive. When you first went behind the wheel, you spent most of your energy just thinking about body in space issues - whether you were in the middle of your lane, where was the gas and the brake, did you have enough room to pass around that parked car, etc. The car became an extension of your body. Simple body in space awareness took your conscious thought.

Looking at Conscious and Sub Conscious Mental Processing

Dr. Catherine Fassbender discusses 3 important regions of the brain that must be connected to attend well. Without good connectivity between various regions of the brain, even simple tasks like driving can become too difficult.  

Working the Subconcious in IM - IM is a cerebellar exercise

What if you relied more heavily on a region of the brain responsible for conscious, effortful movement while typically developing students utilized a region of the brain important for automating motor tasks?   

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.

A 'noisy' brain linked with attention difficulties.

Dr. John Rubenstein spoke at the University of California's MIND Institute last month discussing signaling and growth patterns in the brain. He spoke of how certain disorders may have to do with excited neurons that are not able to be inhibited by the surrounding inhibitory cells. The neurons are firing 'noise', unnecessary uninhibited extra electrical activity. One of the IM research results presented a few years back spoke about this exact phenomenon in children with attentional challenges. Children with attentional challenges tend to have extra 'noise' in their brains. After IM training this noise became quieter, closer to the typical populations amounts of noise.

Dr. Rubenstein has also identified Fgf's that especially impact the frontal lobes and the cerebellum. Many IM gains seems to be related to gains in frontal lobe and cerebellum functioning. I believe IM helps to reconnect connectivity issues through out the brain, but especially in the frontal lobes (in charge of planning, sequencing, time management, organizing, inhibiting, all called executive functions) and cerebellum (the movement area).