Movement quality gives important insight into mental processing!

Awesome new study that links MOVEMENT quality in mental processing issues, especially the ASD spectrum behavior! When I ask your child to 'make circles' I've always known how they make these circles  is important. Here's an article to help you the parent know that too! Micromovements hold hidden information about severity of autism,

Synchronized Brain is Important

This is a collection of recent finds on the importance of synchronization with in the brain. This extremely significant mental process is where IM impacts the brain. 

Functional Neurology

A new name for IM training, at least functionally this is what is happening during IM training. If you watch this trailer, you will see one of the therapies being used is indeed IM. A must see video for all my parents.

Hope Restored: Functional Neurology Serves Humanity from Unseen Line Films on Vimeo.

New Research for IM significance!

How do we know the fried eggs need turned right when we are about to butter the toast? Timing..... but how does our brain actually tell time?  We know when the light should change to green, we wake up with in a minute of the alarm clock going off, we worry when our teen in 5 minutes later than we expected them, but never look at the clock. Fascinating brain! A new theory has just surfaced, and it is using the success with IM as one of it's starting points as to how we keep track of time. Read more here.   How cool could that be!

New IM research published

Here   you can read about how IM helps students with ADD, the theory behind what's happening to help them focus. I'll take the time to blog on it sometime, right now, I'll just link to the research.

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.

The Importance of Automaticity

In IM, automaticity is hugely important. By automatizing your awareness of where your body is in space and how to move it with in time and space very accurately,you free up your conscious brain for higher level functioning. It is one reason IM is so effective and foundational.  Here's an article about automaticity in reading - also essential for good reading - but first you have to automatize your visual processing so the words stay on the page and your body awareness so the book stays in your hand :) IM tasks :)  We see an average of 2 grade levels gain in reading through IM with out ever picking up a book... automaticity.

ADHD Presentation

This presentation is a great overall view of ADD. Each point Dr. Steven Hinshaw makesis backed by research. One piece that was extremely significant was that if the parent of a child with ADHD has even mild depression, outcomes for the child are significantly less positive. We need to help our parents where by indeed we help our children.  Watch the presentation here - Jan 12th 2011 presentation by Dr. Hinshaw.  He advocates a very structured but warm school environment with some adjustments in homework requirements to meet the students needs. Children with ADHD need rewards as well. Teachers and teaching environments make a difference.

Along these lines - I believe the book The Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child  is a great resource for parents of all children, especially any child that is struggling.  It teaches specific steps in positive reinforcement of good behavior and very researched techniques to help the child succeed.

Thinking about thoughts

Rebecca Saxe, a TED Talks speaker, discusses the development of the right temporal parietal junction - the part of the mind that helps us understand what other people are thinking. Very interesting.

Time: Attending to duration triggers specific anticipatory activity

Time processing requires the estimation of events' duration per se, but also seems to trigger attentional and memory processes. (MEG) activity was recorded in fourteen healthy right-handed volunteers. We report an increase of gamma-band oscillations over right fronto-central and parietal regions when subjects are prompted to attend to duration. Our results support the hypothesis that the right fronto-parietal network observed repeatedly in time estimation imaging studies is indeed involved in attentional control rather than stimulus processing. Moreover, they underline the supramodal property of time dimension that goes beyond purely perceptive features.

Authors: Marco Sperduti^a; Catherine Tallon-Baudry^a; Laurent Hugueville^a; Viviane Pouthas<sup>a


Just cut and pasted part of an abstract about Time in the brain.</sup> 

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!

Neural Synchrony and Selective Attention

Boston University's professor of neuroscience Robert Desimone presents a wonderful lecture on Neural Synchrany and Selective Attention.    Caution, very technical.... see my notes in the read more :).  

37 Timing Links

Dr. Kevin McGrew writes the blog Tic Toc Talk: The IQ Brain Clock. He became interested in the role of timing in the brain after reviewing some IM research. He knew of very few programs that could impact academics, motor skills and social development all at once like this new IM program did.

Areas of the brain used to tell time

What does research tell us about how the brain keeps track of time and time related tasks? We are learning more every day. Read more.

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.

List of Self Help Books

I just ran across this list of self help books. I recognized several authors that I value, though many of the individuals I do not know. I'm just sharing the list as it might be a resource worth checking out.

IM Presentation from Dr. Kevin McGrew

This 3 year old presentation from Dr. McGrew was presented at an IM conference several years ago. It's Dr. McGrew's attempt to explain what he believes in happening in the brain during IM that results in so many varied gains, including physical, mental, social, emotional, and academic. If you want very in depth information, view this - it will take some time and is not for those who are seeking quick information!

Metronome: Whats happening under the hoodInteractive Metronome: Whats happening under the hood

View more presentations from iapsych.

Re-wiring the Brain - It's possible!

Michael Merzenich, a neuroscientist specializing in neuroplasticity discusses the cause and cure for children with language  delays. Most children with learning impairments have a brain that has specialized for "noisy" speech. The brain processes in a defective form because early in life the process was noisy. Causes vary from noisy environments, to ear infections, to a 'noisy' brain. That is, a brain that has different time concepts and different space concepts!

Brain Connectivity and Autism

"One of the current hypotheses about the biological basis of autism is that individuals with autism differ in their patterns of brain connectivity.