PHOTOGRAPHER: CARTER FISH
IT’S LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF STAR TREK, BUT IT’S REAL AND ACCEPTED SCIENCE!
At Gray Matters, in Westport and Greenwich, Anthony Silver is using brain imaging to help diagnose and treat children and adults with a variety of issues, including attention deficit and post-traumatic stress disorders, anxiety, and depression. Refining their approach over the last fifteen years, proof of success includes thousands of Gray Matters patients who have eliminated or reduced the use of prescription sedatives, stimulants and psychotropic drugs.
The treatment at Gray Matters starts with an assessment utilizing an electroencephalogram (EEG) and advanced computer software to produce a graphic analysis of the brainknown as a ‘qEEG’. The patient is fitted with a lightweight, stretchy cap with 19 electrodes in standard locations, and then gel is added to each electrode to provide connectivity and measure the brain’s electrical activity. The equipment is not at all uncomfortable, although wiping the gel out of the hair following treatment can be less than perfect – and a trip home for a shower may be the best planned next stop. Brain activity is then recorded with the eyes open and closed, and compared to a Food & Drug Administration registered database of normal EEG for people of different ages to graphically reveal the specifics of each patient’s brain function.
IT’S LIKE LOOKING IN A MIRROR FOR THE FIRST TIME…
and there’s no psychoanalysis necessary! The qEEG provides a direct measurement of brain function – including both activity level and connectivity across the brain – changing what has been a relatively subjective field, into something more reliable and measurable. The picture of each patient’s brain is a matter of indisputable fact. By comparing how each brain area is functioning compared to normal, diagnoses are changed into something measurable. Frequently these findings are different from previous diagnoses – especially in the case of ADHD, which is often confused with anxiety – explaining why repeated medication trials have not worked. Often the results are validating, helping people see, and show others, what they’ve been feeling.
In the case of concussion, this approach is revolutionary. Silver and his team are able to compare changes in brain activity f rom a baseline assessment to the assessment taken post- concussion…and then track changes in activity as the brain recovers. And Gray Matters is starting to use this approach to baseline athletes across the region, bringing a more direct and reliable technique to improve concussion management.
For treatment, Gray Matters matches symptom description with the particular brain areas identified as causing those symptoms, and then runs a program designed to directly reward the brain for improvement. The same cap used for the assessment is used as the training tool –
MONITORING BRAIN ACTIVITY AS THE PATIENT WATCHES A MOVIE. WITH POWERFUL COMPUTERS PROVIDING THE INSTANTANEOUS FEEDBACK REQUIRED FOR THE PROCESS TO WORK, WHEN BRAIN FUNCTION IS IMPROVING THE MOVIE BRIGHTENS AND BECOMES LOUDER, AND WHEN BRAIN FUNCTION TRAILS THE MOVIE BECOMES DIMMER AND QUIETER.
Silver explains, “With traditional psychoanalysis, diagnosis is highly subjective – and often wrong. And the very fact of a diagnosis from traditional mental health professionals can work to label the patient with a permanent disability, and often gives the patient a sense of limited potential. And medication is often prescribed indefinitely. …In no other part of traditional medicine do we treat an organ without having looked at it! …My experience is that parents’ intuitive understanding of their children is often better than the professionals’. And, moreover, no subjective analysis can substitute for the real data a qEEG provides.”
In terms of diagnosis and treatment, the science of neuroplasticity really changes things. We now know that the brain is constantly changing, with 86 billion neurons constantly creating new connections in a process called ‘neurogenesis’, and letting less efficient connections fade away in a process called ‘pruning’. The brain is always looking for greater efficiency – and neurofeedback works by pointing the brain toward that greater efficiency.”
“While we are still at a stage of relative infancy in understanding the human brain,” Silver continues, “…we do now know that the brain is constantly responding and adapting to various stimuli. It can be ‘re-trained’ with lasting effect,” Silver explains. “We know that the brain will respond to high frequency light, biomodulation, photomodulation…and the kind of neurofeedback we’re doing at Gray Matters. In each function, the brain is constantly trying to find its new ‘normal’ – a more comfortable or efficient state. It’s why a sedated person’s brain craves a higher tempo music, while an over-aroused brain prefers a lower tempo, and why an adolescent exposed to too much video games starts to find all other stimuli to be unbearably slow. But with neurofeedback, the brain is being rewarded for making changes on its own, as opposed to having change imposed chemically, and for improving function – often undoing impaired brain function left from anxiety and trauma.”
Silver, now 55, grew up in a leafy suburb in North London, the youngest of three siblings. “As a kid, I was always fascinated with the mechanics of how things work,” Silver says. “At 13 or 14 I got into photography, and taught myself everything about how the camera works and how to make photographs, including building my own darkroom. I still marvel at the technology of turning what we see into a physical picture. A couple of years later, I started reading everything I could about the brain. – Did you know that all human brains are, physiologically speaking, basically the same?! Or that the brain burns about 25% of our calories, even when we’re sleeping? – My uncle was a doctor, and I devoured all his books describing case studies and started studying the evolving field of psychopathology. I attended a prep school near my home called Belmont, then a private boarding school in Hertfordshire called Haileybury, and finished my high school education at University College School in London. I went on to study psychology at the
University of Hull in the north of England, which had one of the most well-respected psychology departments in the U.K, with strong connections to the British Department of Defense. It was at Hull that I was introduced to the study of the electrical activity of the brain and the evolving field of EEG. And then, after moving to the U.S. with my three children, I earned a Masters in Psychology and a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy from Fairfield University.”
“In 2008, my son was being treated for ADHD with medication – but it was my feeling that he was instead suffering from anxiety, and that he needed a different course of treatment,” Silver explains. “I could see how the medication made him more anxious, how he lost his appetite and couldn’t fall asleep at night. The turning point came when his doctor suggested a second medication to deal with the side-effects of the first! It all seemed so wrong, so arbitrary, and I hated seeing my child medicated!”
Referring back to his experience with EEG, he theorized that if kids’ brains were linked to a reward, they could be taught to concentrate, eliminating their need for medication. He discovered there were people actually doing this, in an emerging field called ‘neurofeedback’. Silver was hooked.
Initially, Silver worked with a system that linked Playstation2 game consoles to brain function, teaching kids to race cars by focusing better. As the science of neurofeedback developed – so did the techniques. Silver is now one of around 100 clinicians in the world granted Diplomate status – the highest level of expertise – in the field of qEEG. He teaches and mentors other clinicians and, for the last two years, has been invited to present qEEG studies to the Society of Brain Mapping and Therapeutics in Los Angeles. He has testified as an expert witness in numerous legal hearings pertaining to brain injuries, and is a published author on the subject. Most of Silver’s patients are referred by their psychiatrist or psychologist, and Gray Matters is increasingly collaborating with psychoanalysts and other clinicians, giving them more information about – and before they medicate – their patients.
“It’s too easy for psychotherapists to diagnose children with ADHD – because the diagnosis is a general description of difficulties, but does not describe a specific neurological disorder,” Silver says. “In the 14 years we’ve now been using qEEG brain mapping, we’ve found that around 75% of children we see with previous ADHD diagnoses would not be helped by stimulant medication, but rather made worse. I’m not anti- medication, I’m just anti medicating children without knowing that it’s the right decision. This technology helps make that decision clearer.”
Silver summarizes, “Every week we see patients who’ve been diagnosed and medicated for years, sometimes for disorders that they simply don’t have. Other people are struggling without medication. Either way – we can help. QEEG brain mapping allows us to actually see and measure how the brain is working, and how it relates to symptoms. Quite often people come to us just to clarify a diagnosis. Neurofeedback allows us to effectively improve symptoms – without medication, and improvements can be measured.
THE SIMPLE PROOF THAT THIS WORKS ARE THE THOUSANDS OF GRAY MATTERS PATIENTS WHO HAVE REDUCED OR ELIMINATED THEIR MEDICATIONS AND, QUITE SIMPLY, NOW FEEL AND PERFORM BETTER!”
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