Award

[Siegfried Othmer]

I would like to use this forum to express my appreciation to the ISNR leadership for my selection to receive the M.B. Sterman Career Achievement Award that was presented at this year’s annual meeting. I accepted it also on behalf of my late wife, Sue Othmer, my professional partner and source of inspiration for 38 years. 

I also want to invite conference attendees who did not hear my talk at the conference to take the opportunity to watch the video. The ISNR is still in search of a defining identity, and I am persuaded that it is not to be found in emulation of the medical model in its deficit and disorder focus. Our natural turf is core self-regulatory competence, and in that pursuit the traditional biofeedback modalities are our natural complements. Biofeedback goes “up the down staircase” to train brain function by way of measures of peripheral physiology, whereas we go to the source, but our respective approaches are organically complementary. 

The goal of biofeedback is self-regulatory competence, and that is ours as well. Barry’s cats did not qualify by dysfunction. Barry was training a mechanism, motoric excitability, with beneficial fallout broadly for brain function. Dysfunction subsides by virtue of better function. It is more straight-forward to target mechanisms, as nature is simple in design, even as it is complex in execution.

This has been our approach over all these years, and the payoff has been abundant. It should be well worth your while to acquaint yourself with what has been accomplished. The health professions are blind to the centrality of self-regulatory competence to both mental and somatic health. With enhanced self-regulatory competence as the core mission, we can seize the high ground. 

Siegfried Othmer, Ph.D.

Board Chair, the Brian Othmer Foundation

Chief Scientist, The EEG Institute, Los Angeles

www.brianothmerfoundation.org

www.eeginfo.com

www.eeginstitute.com

[John Anderson]

Siegfried,

Sue was an inspiration to many people, including me.  She pioneered so many approaches that are widely used and the two of you continuously challenged the field to look beyond the medical model of disease and 'treatment' and to focus on the training and skill acquisition model that will hopefully carry us into the future.  Congratulations on your well deserved award!

John

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John S Anderson, MA, BCB, BCN, QEEG-D

Minnesota NeuroTraining Institute

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[Siegfried Othmer]

Thank you, John—

Our paths first crossed at “A Chance to Grow” in Minneapolis, which received the first NeuroCybernetics system intended for an institutional setting back in 1991. Then you added biofeedback to the mix, and visual stimulation came along later. That may well have been the first case of utilization of NF in a school setting for functionally impaired children. 

Siegfried 

[Siegfried Othmer]

List members: 

For those who don’t have access to my presentation, here’s a brief description of the method: 

The mere expedient of lowering the threshold on the discrete rewards in the original Sterman SMR-beta protocol (i.e., bipolar montage on the sensorimotor strip) turned an operant conditioning design into what we call Endogenous Neuromodulation. Instead of the burden of teasing out the reward contingency, the brain could now simply recognize itself in the unfolding signals, the dynamics within the training band, and the low-frequency dynamics. These became its action item. This shifted the burden from the practitioner to the brain, and left the practitioner in an observational mode so that the parameters (placement and training frequency) could be steered to their most propitious outcome. 

In the late nineties, this led to Sue’s discovery of the Optimal Response Frequency Paradigm, namely the existence of particular frequencies that effectively organize the frequency spectrum. The search for the ORFs in each case led us to encompass the entire EEG spectrum, albeit with an obvious bias toward the low frequencies. This was particularly so for our most challenging clients, which turned out to be those with a history of early childhood trauma. In 2006, this took us into the infra-low frequency (Slow Cortical Potential) domain. The same placements that had been found useful in the EEG range just carried over into the ILF regime. Frequency rules that governed the relationship of ORFs between different placements gave us a prediction model that made a hard science out of the entire enterprise. 

On the principle that the lower frequencies establish the context for the higher ones, we were now training the EEG regime indirectly by way of astrocyte dynamics that govern neuronal excitability. Clinical results drove us ever lower in target frequency over the years, until we were in the ultra-low frequency regime of micro-Hz. Effectively, by way of the ultra-low frequency ORFs we had gravitated to the top of the regulatory hierarchy in the frequency domain, where training in core state regulation should be most efficiently conducted, with the broadest clinical footprint. The application to early childhood trauma and developmental delay is obvious, but the benefits of this approach are essentially universal. We are all on the disregulation spectrum, and only the training itself can reveal what our brains are capable of.  

The above approach is always accompanied by an inhibit protocol, and complemented with other, more conventional protocols. 

Siegfried Othmer, Ph.D 

Chief Scientist, The EEG Institute

www.eeginstitute.com

www.eeginfo.com 

References: 

Endogenous Neuromodulation at Infra-Low Frequency: Method and Theory

Siegfried and Susan F. Othmer 

https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202310.1085/v2

Endogenous Neuromodulation at Infra-Low Frequencies (2023)

Siegfried Othmer 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372159982_Endogenous_Neuromodulation_at_Infra-Low_Frequencies

[John Anderson]

Siegfried,

I think what throws people when thinking about these concepts is that they don't fit well into the 'frequency' paradigm and most hardware and software isn't designed to work within these ranges.  I've come to think of it as gradient training. Giving the client feedback about cortical gradient changes gives them access to one of the most fundamental functions that influence brain activity. However it is done, as long as the information is accurate, the client can self regulate the most basic mechanism we currently have access to.

John S Anderson, MA, BCB, BCN, QEEG-D

Minnesota NeuroTraining Institute

www.neurofeedback-institute.com

qeeg...@gmail.com

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[Siegfried Othmer]

John—

What you call gradient training, training on gradient changes, translates in my language to “low-frequency dynamics,” so we are on the same page in that regard. But when you write that “these concepts…don’t fit well into the frequency paradigm (for which) most hardware and software (has been) designed", then I can only say that the same was true for us. Even our first design for the low-frequency range had a 0.08 Hz cutoff because we didn’t anticipate the need to go lower. But that still allowed us to explore down to the 1 mHz range, at which point a firmware and software change became necessary, and the rest is history. 

The critical issue here involves the principle of Optimal Response Frequency. Once that principle is recognized, then it cannot be ignored. It’s just the way nature behaves, and we have to accommodate our methods to the realities. What is the payoff? We get a benefit in terms of training efficiency and in the scope of the clinical footprint—the virtue of targeting core state regulation rather than specific deficits. But there is also a more specific benefit. 

Our greatest challenge in NF—outside of early childhood trauma—is the entire range of cerebral instabilities—seizures, migraines, trigeminal neuralgia, panic, asthma episodes, rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, episodic suicidality, nocturnal myoclonus, restless leg syndrome, sleep walking, sleep apnea, etc. These categories are all responsive to training at the trainee’s ORF. In fact, it was working with instabilities that first firmly established the ORF principle.   

Siegfried Othmer, Ph.D. 

Chief Scientist, The EEG Institute

Los Angeles

www.eeginstitute.com

www.eeginfo.com

On Nov 20, 2025, at 7:29 AM, John Anderson <qeeg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Siegfried,

I think what throws people when thinking about these concepts is that they don't fit well into the 'frequency' paradigm and most hardware and software isn't designed to work within these ranges.  I've come to think of it as gradient training. Giving the client feedback about cortical gradient changes gives them access to one of the most fundamental functions that influence brain activity. However it is done, as long as the information is accurate, the client can self regulate the most basic mechanism we currently have access to.

John S Anderson, MA, BCB, BCN, QEEG-D

Minnesota NeuroTraining Institute

www.neurofeedback-institute.com

qeeg...@gmail.com

[John Anderson]

Seigfried,

Fred Shaffer has posted on the Biosource Software site some excellent articles about frequencies associated with heart rate, respiration and even oscillations in the gut that are quite slow.  I suspect we will begin to see more fully how all these interact.  As for the optimal reward frequency, I find it to be an interesting concept and I wonder what influences contribute to differences between individuals - genetics, history, diet, nutrition, chemical or heavy metal exposure, food or other allergies and sensitivities, gut microbiota, respiratory patterns, etc.  I've always been a fan of training HRV first before doing any neurofeedback since that is a skill a client can use at any time, on their own, that has proven benefits for pretty much everyone.  That's the great thing about neuroscience in general and applied neuroscience in particular - it remains endlessly fascinating and continues to grow and evolve, never ceasing to amaze.

John

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[Rustam Yumash]

I have a strong feeling that there is a need for a comprehensive theory of Neurofeedback.  If neurofeedback works because the brain “observes itself,” then we are automatically in the domain of consciousness.

• The system that generates the signal

• also perceives the signal,

• and modifies itself in relation to it.

This is a reflexive loop, a hallmark of conscious systems.

This is the same structure seen in meditation:The mind becomes aware of its own contents — and stabilizes.

I am wondering if we should have this as a separate topic for wider discussions on Theory of Neurofeedback?

Kindly

Rustam Yumash

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Rustam Yumash, BMed, Dip. Neurology

Director, Brain Mind & Memory Institute

Authorised representative for BEE Medic in Australia

Contact: Mobile+61413181147 | Email: ryu...@beemedic.au    

Website: www.beemedic.com/en| www.braininstitute.com.au | 

Address: PO Box 935, Tweed Heads, NSW 2485, Australia

 

[John Anderson]

Well said!

John 

John S Anderson, MA, BCB, BCN, QEEG-D

Minnesota NeuroTraining Institute

www.neurofeedback-institute.com

qeeg...@gmail.com

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/isnr_members_forum/CAK7omh13Av31ywGQEEEnaJoBULXYaafeCbgwHkCHj4ftnuP3zw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Siegfried Othmer]

Rustam—

Barry’s research with the cats provides a useful example for this discussion. Barry started out with a classical conditioning design, in which the cats had to learn that food would be available when the light came on in the chamber, but not when a tone was also present. Consciousness was involved in the discrimination. But when the training procedure transitioned to an operant conditioning design, the cats were no longer aware of the contingency, and the training became covert. Consciousness was no longer in charge. During the extinction design, when the delivery of food ceased at some point, the cats increased their incidence of SMR-bursts to make food appear. All of that took place beneath the level of awareness of the cats. The cats just wanted food to appear. The brain took charge from there. 

Now take Infra-low frequency NF. The signal is slow and boring, unlikely to hold the attentions of an ADHD child—or of an infant. The signal is therefore delivered covertly, and the trainee is distracted by way of visually interesting material, such as a video game or a movie. Consciousness is completely absorbed in the movie or video game. Meanwhile, the brain discerns the presence of a signal that directly mirrors its unfolding activation dynamics. And it reacts accordingly. The neurofeedback is once again entirely covert. The brain does not get bored any more than it gets bored taking care of your steering wheel on a long drive, which it also does covertly. 

Siegfried 

On Nov 20, 2025, at 4:16 PM, Rustam Yumash <ryu...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have a strong feeling that there is a need for a comprehensive theory of Neurofeedback.  If neurofeedback works because the brain “observes itself,” then we are automatically in the domain of consciousness.

• The system that generates the signal

• also perceives the signal,

• and modifies itself in relation to it.

This is a reflexive loop, a hallmark of conscious systems.

This is the same structure seen in meditation:The mind becomes aware of its own contents — and stabilizes.

I am wondering if we should have this as a separate topic for wider discussions on Theory of Neurofeedback?

Kindly

Rustam Yumash

On Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at ie14 AM John Anderson <qeeg...@gmail.com> wrote:

Siegfried

[Rustam Yumash]

Thank you Sigfried!!. This opens up further questions. Many people notice how much reward they get and comment if their brains are doing well. So some agency is present and I am not sure how we can measure that. 

The Sterman cat model may not be sufficient to resolve whether endogenous neuromodulation is truly “non-conscious,” because the experimental context strips the animals of the full spectrum of natural agency:

• they were in captivity

• movement was restricted

• electrodes were surgically implanted

• the reward structure was externally imposed

• the brain was operating in an artificially simplified environment

• the animal had no alternative behavioral affordances

In such conditions, the organism is not expressing the full repertoire of what we would call a sentient, self-regulating system with access to naturalistic interoception, environmental coupling, social signalling, or spontaneous exploratory behavior.

I believe that further theory of Neurofeedback should involve consciousness models more sophisticated exploration of how brain hypernetwork produce mind and consciousness. 

Should we really say that endogenous neuromodulation “does not involve consciousness,” or should we say it operates at the pre-reflective and pre-attentive levels of consciousness?

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[John Anderson]

Rustam,

Excellent points. I used to tell my clients that the process was largely non-cognitive. That beyond a basic understanding of what we were training and why, plus instructions to occasionally talk about how they were feeling, their intention would encourage non-cognitive CNS functions to produce change. So, not particularly cognitive but certainly consciously driven. Extrapolating the nature of the training process from cats that were essentially being tortured does not give us an understanding the optimum training process.

John 

John S Anderson, MA, BCB, BCN, QEEG-D

Minnesota NeuroTraining Institute

www.neurofeedback-institute.com

qeeg...@gmail.com

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[Siegfried Othmer]

Rustam:

You write:  "Many people notice how much reward they get and comment if their brains are doing well. So some agency is present….”  

Here we need to distinguish between intentionality and agency. The cats exhibited intentionality with respect to their desire to see food appear in the cup. It was manifested by way of their intense focus on the cup. With respect to making food appear, on the other hand, agency lay entirely with the cat’s brain. In the case of people doing the Sterman protocol, intentionality was more specific, in that it was a matter of generating beeps. However, once again agency lay entire with the trainee’s brain. Such agency lies entirely outside the realm of consciousness. And finally, when it comes to infra-low frequency NF by way of Endogenous Neuromodulation, the trainee is fully engaged with the movie or video game. That means both agency and intentionality must be assigned the the brain. 

What does it mean to assign intentionality to the brain? The brain has to attach meaning to the signal in order to intervene appropriately. It does so by way of a prediction model. Matters begin with the apprehension by the brain that a correlation exists between a signal it is witnessing and its own internal state. This gives rise to the conditional hypothesis of agency. The brain then has to experience a convergence between its prediction and the unfolding reality in order to confirm the conditional hypothesis. The brain then engages in manner that also exhibits intentionality—the drive toward a calmer, better-regulated state. It does so by way of the above prediction-and-convergence model. This process is continuous, never reaching closure, as the feedback path is simply integrated into the brain’s self-regulation schema. As the system is simultaneously acting and being acted upon, Walter Freeman termed this process 'circular causality'.

Siegfried

On Nov 22, 2025, at 11:13 AM, Rustam Yumash <ryu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you Siegfried!!. This opens up further questions. Many people notice how much reward they get and comment if their brains are doing well. So some agency is present and I am not sure how we can measure that. 

[Rustam Yumash]

Dear Siegfried,

Thank you for the clarification regarding intentionality versus agency.

I agree with your description that EN operates at the level of intrinsic biological agency, especially when the trainee’s conscious attention is engaged

However, I wonder whether we may be dealing with multiple layers of agency rather than a binary distinction between “conscious” and “non-conscious.” Modern neuroscience — from Anokhin to Friston and Michael Levin’s work on cellular agency — suggests that biological systems exhibit goal-directed behavior based on predictive models long before these processes enter conscious awareness.

In that sense, the brain’s “agency” during EN is still part of the same functional architecture from which conscious experience eventually emerges. Infra-slow dynamics, interoceptive loops, and global regulatory networks strongly shape the conscious state, even if the training itself is covert.

In clinical practice, I find that involving the conscious agent — through awareness of state shifts, HRV feedback, or reflective integration — greatly improves transfer into real-world behavior. This suggests that biological agency and conscious agency are not separate but nested within each other.

My question, therefore, is whether we can conceptualize EN as tuning the intrinsic regulatory substrate, with consciousness acting as an emergent layer that can engage with, amplify, or stabilize these shifts. This would align EN with current theories of consciousness and functional systems, rather than positioning it as purely non-conscious.

Rustam 

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[Siegfried Othmer]

Rustam—

Indeed the optimization procedure and protocol selection schema in Endogenous Neuromodulation depend on good reporting from the trainee (or caregiver), and they benefit from availability of physiological measures. In that sense, conscious self-appraisal is an essential contributor to the procedure. But this aspect is readily distinguishable from the training process itself, which does not depend on conscious supervision. Clearly it is helpful for the trainee to notice the state shifts as they occur, in that it improves the quality of reporting, but as in biofeedback, the observation follows the reality of the state shift. Conscious engagement neither leads it nor brings it about. To buttress this argument, let me point out that the brain’s response to the signal is necessarily exquisitely context-sensitive, and the brain itself is the only entity aware of the context in which it is navigating state space. 

The unvarnished truth is that the brain really doesn’t need any encouragement. It is just minding its own business, albeit in the presence of a highly opinionated feedback loop. You can think of Endogenous Neuromodulation effectively as a state regulation prosthesis! It requires no more of the trainee’s ongoing attention than a continuous glucose monitor. Consciousness here is like the monkey driving the Jeep in “The Gods Must be Crazy,” all the while thinking he is in charge. 

That said, I do not quarrel at all with your statement that involving conscious agency "through awareness of state shifts, HRV feedback, or reflective integration — greatly improves transfer into real-world behavior.” Ideally we want trainees to end up feeling empowered with respect to their ability to self-regulate volitionally. That is best accomplished with HRV and the other BF modalities.  

Siegfried 

[David Cantor]

Thank you for this thread - I have been following it as I have invested a fair bit of time over the years on the idea of Consciousness and how this is represented in the brain - this is what brought me to my workshop at ISNR in Chicago - my mentor, E Roy John also was very much interested in this topic and published on this topic as part of his pursuits looking at what happens in the transition from "unconsciousness" to "consciousness" with patients emerging from the effects of anesthesia. In all such discussions, the ambiguities of defining consciousness obfuscates arriving at applying this term in the world of neuroscience and even at philosophical discussions. I think the path to understanding this process is much the way Roy John was approaching and indeed the work that has been done by Penrose & Hammeroff because there are "metrics" in neurophysiology that we can use to examine "consciousness" to correlate to our understanding of "consciousness" - assuming we have a common definition. Still the process has been elusive even with such brilliant minds as these have yet to confirm - so much so that Penrose, a Noel Laureate in Physics has come to declare that we simply do not have the "physics" to fully explain the process. Classical conditioning models themselves evidence that the particular state of the nervous system can yield new adaptive behaviors - without "awareness" to yield adaptive behaviors. I think no less true when doing biofeedback or neurofeedback - this will happen whether we are "aware" or not of the such process underlying these adaptive processes - the fact that adaptability takes place in so called "placebo" effects does not negate this - it only illustrates our ignorance of not fully understanding the mechanisms of adaptability and such can take place without the presence of a particular change agent like a drug or stimulation techniques or introducing any sensory events upon the organism. The reality is we don't know what we don't know - the key issue is whether achieved adaptability does indeed take place and that is measurable - is what is really important - I suppose in this context, I would have to agree with Siegfried - our understanding of exactly how this happens is still undiscovered territory but we should maintain scientific rigor to continue to guide our journey and paradigms of RCT does not necessarily apply in this context. 

Just some thoughts - 

Dave

 

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[John Anderson]

This continues to be an interesting discussion.  I'm a bit out of my depth when it comes to the intellectual discussion.  However, my interest is mostly in personal experience and the experience of clients.  I understand the value of describing or trying to describe the process, mechanisms and experiences and at the same time I don't think we really have the language.  When I think about this I always come back to Patanjali's first sutra that says in essence that the practice of yoga is to 'still the modifications of the mind'.  My experience of this has been most effective when training for cortical positivity, which creates an inhibitory environment that appears to markedly decrease pyramidal neuron firing and leads to a state that seems like the descriptions of the 'no mind' state mentioned in Buddhist practices.  Awareness but no thought.  It's an interesting state.

John

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From: isnr_memb...@googlegroups.com <isnr_memb...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of David Cantor <can...@mindmotioncenters.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2025 7:58 AM
To: isnr_memb...@googlegroups.com <isnr_memb...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Theory of Neurofeedback

 

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[Siegfried Othmer]

Dave—

Your post inspires a number of lines of thought. I am reminded of Einstein’s dictum, “It is the theory that tells us what we may believe.” And in the history of our field, it has always been the existing models in our heads that have kept us from embracing the full implications of what we have had the opportunity to discover. In our own case, the journey to the ultra-low frequency range invites incredulity, and my only answer is that I cannot ignore the data. So there is the feeling of not quite having your feet on the ground, but we move forward anyway. 

In matters of consciousness, we don’t have our feet on the ground…Consciousness is our lived experience, so that all we can do ‘scientifically’ is to try to understand its mechanization. Roger Penrose first speculated about the involvement of quantum entanglement in 1989. But we don’t need to speculate about this. The reality that scientists have hesitated to confront is that mental telepathy exists, and that means consciousness is non-local. The only known mechanism that can explain communication between brains at a large distance is quantum entanglement. For that mechanism to exist at all, it must persist across time, by the nature of entanglement—no interrupts. And that means we cannot understand the mechanisms underlying consciousness until we incorporate quantum entanglement in our models. And now I am with Penrose in saying that we simply to not have the physics to fully explain this… I am going to be sitting in the bleachers and wait for somebody else to figure this out.

I am willing to speculate that a certain level of complexity is needed for quantum entanglement to sustain itself. I doubt entanglement is operative in the sea squirt or in the nematode C. elegans, with its 302 neurons. We also cannot simply identify consciousness with the existence of entanglement, because the latter must be sustained during states of sleep, anesthesia, and the near-death experience—by virtue of the principle of no interrupts. Entanglement may be the key to understanding savant behavior, photographic memory, and the rare phenomenon of being able to recall one's entire past history in detail. For the rest of us, it is probably key to the quality of consciousness that we get to experience. 

Siegfried 

On Nov 26, 2025, at 6:58 AM, David Cantor <can...@mindmotioncenters.com> wrote:

Thank you for this thread - I have been following it as I have invested a fair bit of time over the years on the idea of Consciousness and how this is represented in the brain - this is what brought me to my workshop at ISNR in Chicago - my mentor, E Roy John also was very much interested in this topic and published on this topic as part of his pursuits looking at what happens in the transition from "unconsciousness" to "consciousness" with patients emerging from the effects of anesthesia. In all such discussions, the ambiguities of defining consciousness obfuscates arriving at applying this term in the world of neuroscience and even at philosophical discussions. I think the path to understanding this process is much the way Roy John was approaching and indeed the work that has been done by Penrose & Hammeroff because there are "metrics" in neurophysiology that we can use to examine "consciousness" to correlate to our understanding of "consciousness" - assuming we have a common definition. Still the process has been elusive even with such brilliant minds as these have yet to confirm - so much so that Penrose, a Noel Laureate in Physics has come to declare that we simply do not have the "physics" to fully explain the process. Classical conditioning models themselves evidence that the particular state of the nervous system can yield new adaptive behaviors - without "awareness" to yield adaptive behaviors. I think no less true when doing biofeedback or neurofeedback - this will happen whether we are "aware" or not of the such process underlying these adaptive processes - the fact that adaptability takes place in so called "placebo" effects does not negate this - it only illustrates our ignorance of not fully understanding the mechanisms of adaptability and such can take place without the presence of a particular change agent like a drug or stimulation techniques or introducing any sensory events upon the organism. The reality is we don't know what we don't know - the key issue is whether achieved adaptability does indeed take place and that is measurable - is what is really important - I suppose in this context, I would have to agree with Siegfried - our understanding of exactly how this happens is still undiscovered territory but we should maintain scientific rigor to continue to guide our journey and paradigms of RCT does not necessarily apply in this context. 

Just some thoughts - 

Dave

 

[Rustam Yumash]

Thank you Siegfried. 

The discussion is extremely important for the theory of Neurofeedback.Thank you — your distinction between intentionality and agency clarifies the core mechanism of Endogenous Neuromodulation, especially the covert nature of the ILF feedback loop.

At the same time, recent work in theoretical biology and neuroscience suggests that agency may not be a single-level phenomenon, and this may help us resolve the tension in our discussion.

I found a paper from Michael Levin camp that maps the territory of Endogenous neuromodulation quite well: 

 “Cellular signaling pathways as plastic, proto-cognitive systems: Implications for biomedicine” by Juanita Mathews, Alan (Jaelyn) Chang, Liam Devlin & Michael Levin (2023).

Levin's paper provides a biological and theoretical foundation showing that organisms possess intrinsic, adaptive, memory-bearing control systems, which directly supports your concept of Endogenous Neuromodulation — the idea that therapeutic change emerges by engaging the organism’s own self-regulating intelligence.

In my therapeutic experience I perceive this from my conscious perspective as being in touch with Nature , its wisdom and deep evolutionary algorithms of living systems. 

 Intrinsic biological agency (Michael Levin; cellular & network homeostasis)

Levin’s work shows that biological systems — from tissues to organs — exhibit intrinsic goal-directedness, error-correction, and predictive capacity even far below the level of consciousness. This sort of agency:

• does not require awareness

• operates through internal models

• maintains coherence across time

• reacts immediately to perturbation

This level of agency maps well onto your description of Endogenous Neuromodulation:
the brain engages with the signal directly, covertly, and with exquisite context-sensitivity.

This is agency-without-consciousness.
And EN is an intervention at this level.

Rustam

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[Randy Lyle]

I think Joseph LeDoux’s Therapy Four Relms of Existence has something to contribute to this discussion. 

Randy

Sent from my iPhone

Randall R Lyle, Ph.D., LMFT, BCN

On Nov 27, 2025, at 6:23 AM, Rustam Yumash <ryu...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Siegfried Othmer]

Rustam— 

Yes, Levin’s paper implicitly supports the case for Endogenous Neuromodulation, but it is also not above criticism. As Ian McGilchrist has pointed out, the biological literature imputes directed agency—intentionality, effectively—at all levels by its very language. Indeed, it seems awkward to avoid doing so. This holds true in the way we talk about the immune system, with mission-oriented T-cells and B-cells, all the way down to the level of DNA repair. To impute intentionality/agency down to the cellular and even molecular level is clearly problematic. We do have cytokine storms. Our models should be as parsimonious as possible, and it suffices to claim that the neural network model supports the prediction model, and hence agency, in the service of self-regulatory competence. It is integrative in character and instantiates top-down-control by way of hierarchical architecture. We have autonomy at the top; servitude at the bottom. 

Let’s back up. Richard Feynman set out on a science career early in life in order to get at the essence of things. He later realized that science never gets to the essence of things. As a physicist, he joked that all we get is ‘equations of motion’—the rules of behavior. As human beings, however, we do get to encounter essence with respect to one entity—our own consciousness. It is our lived experience. But if we now wish to pursue the study of consciousness in the scientific model, we are back to studying mechanisms…  

Barry (who taught for us for five years) used to bring up the simple example of deciding to raise one’s arm. We experience the radical divide between the intention and the implementation. There is a gap twixt one and the other that we do not know how to fill in. How does consciousness, that amorphous, ethereal reality, come to direct physical behavior? In the evolutionary perspective on brain function this divide does not exist. Sensation begets awareness, and the emergence of recursive neural networks opens the door to self-awareness, awareness of awareness. We have consciousness. The entire system is unitary in character, seamlessly organized to implement intentionality by way of top-down control. Consciousness is the brain’s means of expanding the scope of intentionality. There is no gap to be filled. With respect to the conceptual gap high-lighted by Barry, just as ’science’ does not get us to ‘essence,’ it also cannot shed light on anything related to essence.  

The dual perspective of NF in a top-down and bottom-up framing could hardly be better illustrated than by our own forty-year journey in NF. It is only after we ventured into the ILF range in 2006 and had no more use for the discrete rewards that the model of endogenous neuromodulation fully took shape: We had arrived at bottom-up NF in which the brain assumed a controlling role. Prior to that transition, we could still make the case for the relevance of the operant conditioning model even as we were violating its rules by having substantially raised the reward incidence. It was a simple matter of interpreting our new approach as a paradigm reversal. With the dropouts of the beeps becoming rare, they had become the attended event! (“Where did my beeps go?”) Peace was restored in the theory department. 

Meanwhile, the brain was on its own journey, lunching on the low-frequency information stream that we had provided—by way of endogenous neuromodulation. (“Give the brain any information about itself, and it will make sense out of it”— Paul Bach-y-Rita.) While the trainee was attentive to the dropout of the beeps, the brain was engaged with the signal it was actually getting. With client and practitioner living in one worldview, the brain was inhabiting another reality entirely. We had been doing bottom-up NF all along.   

By virtue of endogenous neuromodulation being entirely covert, intentionality on the part of the trainee can play no useful role in the particulars of the training process. This does not hold true just because the trainee is typically distracted by a movie or game. Rather it holds true more categorically. Quite simply, the trainee is not in a position to attach valence to the unfolding signal. The low-frequency dynamics reflect such system-level complexity—and contextual specificity—that the signal is meaningful only to the brain itself. Intentionality at the volitional level has no way to engage. In consequence, nothing is lost in terms of training efficiency by distracting the trainee with more engaging fare. What drives the process forward is agency at the brain level—agency in support of the prediction model that is organized to subserve our survival needs and optimal functioning imperatives. 

With respect to the practice of NF, the salient distinction between operant conditioning and endogenous neuromodulation lies in training efficiency. In the former, the brain has to discern the relevant contingency that underlies the occasional appearance of odd-ball events, the discrete rewards. The process stretches across time, and involves events that occur only sparsely. By contrast, endogenous neuromodulation is a continuous process, all essential elements of which occur in real time (“circular causality”). Training-induced state shifts may be come observable within minutes, allowing the protocol optimization procedure to begin. 

When the brain takes over the mission, its priority becomes core state regulation (arousal, affect, autonomic; cerebral stability). It’s just what happens, and we defer to the brain’s wisdom in that regard. To this task, endogenous neuromodulation is uniquely suited. However, we acknowledge also that this is a matter of priority rather than of exclusivity. There is a lot that we now know about failure modes in the brain that justify our assuming a controlling role with respect to remediation, and that has led to the proliferation of methods in our field. No argument about that. The import of this discussion is to shift our perspective on priorities, as we have an inherent tendency to take charge, even when it would be better to yield primacy to the brain in its journey to self-recovery.  

Siegfried 

[Salvatore Barba]

To all thinkers and scientists on this email stream: 

The dialogue here is quite fascinating and explodes into important perspectives. I think that our science continues to evolve in our search for what occurs in the brain, and in the role of how the physical body participates in the evolution of consciousness!  Thank you all for igniting this discussion! Thank you Siegfried for elucidating many of the points discussed on this email stream.

Thank you Rustam for this quote: "Levin's paper provides a biological and theoretical foundation showing that organisms possess intrinsic, adaptive, memory-bearing control systems, which directly supports your concept of Endogenous Neuromodulation — the idea that therapeutic change emerges by engaging the organism’s own self-regulating intelligence." 

I think what may be leaving out from our discussion when we point to concepts such as "agency," "self-regulating intelligence" "intrinsic," and "adaptive," emanating from an "engaging organism" and the mechanics of how one obtains a reward during a training session, is the difference between our unit model of thinking versus whole systems thinking. There is a top down and bottom up process that occurs when a person learns to listen to their bodily felt experiencing. This is an introspective process that our neuroscience has not researched enough. Here is just one example of what I mean. A client arrives in the office who let's say had previous neurofeedback. The clinician asks the client what did they learn from their previous NFB sessions. The client says that they looked at the training screen display, and tried to move the object to obtain a sound, and a reward. 

During those string of moments while the client describes looking at the game screen, there is something going on in the brain-body-mind- experience: perhaps frustration, perhaps curiosity on how to obtain a reward. If the client begins to consciously inwardly attend a vague feeling in response to the outward environment of their interaction with the display, you might begin to see the rostral region of the Cingulate light up; which some of our research suggests that the client is attending a felt sense. If we, as the clinician don't pause the system from time to time to support the client to attend the experience they are having, we support them to by-pass the living wisdom living in their bodily experience. We can make the mistake of not being careful enough to support the client through the training by making certain to ask them to directly refer to their experience versus by-passing their experience and the potential creation of new meaning and change. Looping back and forth into concepts and schematizing without including felt experience shuts down the experience of moving into new steps of experiential and cognitive change. 

I devoted many years studying with Gene Gendlin, who was a professor at the University of Chicago. He use to state in our work with him that, "the source of meaning doesn't come from distinctions, it comes from felt experience. Therefore, FE comes prior to distinctions,"  as potential felt meaning becomes more consciously known, and can open into new discoveries and further experiences. 

I think when we form one or more concepts into a protocol to perhaps be used to arrive at a new way of thinking and behaving,  (Kuhn discusses this in his writings) the new way established by a collective agreement on how to use a unit of measurement as a "protocol," potentially cuts us off from listening and learning how to think at the edge through direct referencing to our bodily language, which is directly connected to the way our brain engages in any given hemispheric task consciously and unconsciously. We can potentially through our neuro-technology observe a client attending to their introspective experience, (wire someone up to a twenty channel SW LORETA training system, and watch the rostral region of the Cingulate light up when a client learns to listen to their felt experience while training!) And, yet there is no one same experience or experiencing in different or in relative ways. This can also be seen in an EEG, where my data would not be the same as someone else's data. Therefore, we can "schematize" any relative experience as depending upon relative specification. When we look at relativity from the point of view of "agency," several concepts or schemes could be taken to refer to some "same" experiencing. Furthermore, in our discourse, to isolate or refer to an experiencing during our introspection, we must also imply a scheme. And, when we arrive at some "same" experience, this may be the basis on which a group of concepts are all "relative" (that is, they all refer to, and are relative to the same experiencing). However, the implication here that I am suggesting, is that different schemes and different issues may be pulled together to refer to some "same" experiencing in different and relative ways--just as relevant during real time EEG. Therefore, there is no one absolute basis in experience itself that would determine which issues or kinds of schemes (concepts) could point to the "same" experiencing. Rather, (as anxiety producing as this may seem), all creation of meaning invites new options-possibilities regarding which different concepts, schemes and issues can create new specifications of a "new, same, such," experiencing....when one his taught how to directly refer to their felt sense of a problem, circumstance or issue. It is a humbling approach to pursue scientifically as well as clinically anyone's on-going changing felt experiencing versus circling back into frozen bound quantitative paradigms. Our quantitative science is critical for us to do perform our research, etc.   

However, prior to the onset of the Phenomenological movement, William James viewed "felt experiencing," as foundational to consciousness. He thought that F.E. was a crucial source of wisdom in the navigation and adaptation to reality, particularly when abstract reasoning falls short from our innermost awareness (Gendlin takes this perspective further in his works on Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning). James emphasized the immediate, personal, and continuous flow of one's subjective life. He argued that our experiential stream of consciousness potentially holds insights that can move into new steps of positive change that mere intellectual analysis, and the Unit Model, will often either overlook and completely miss. The term "stream of consciousness," was famously coined by James, as the mind being a continuously flowing, ever-changing, personal process, and not a series of broken up bits, and our stream of consciousness is our primary, concrete reflection of inner experience. James described this flow of consciousness as "fringe" of consciousness, as where Gendlin would refer to it as the edge between consciousness and "what is not yet quite known until we directly refer to it....." James would say that the "felt" sense provides us with crucial, inarticulate guidance for thought, behavior, and the potential for new ways of using our neuro-technology and scientific research!

I think for James, and perhaps for Gendlin, felt experience isn't a passive reception of data! Rather, it is an active, adaptive, and wise process that is deeply embedded and woven within our physical body and critically important for making sense of our personal and scientific world in creating meaningful discoveries and choices. There is agency, and I think our agency is alive within our innermost awareness!

More currently, we do not have to search too far to engage in the readings of Bezel Vandercoff's work on the Body Knows The Score. Or, Damasio's theory of the nature of consciousness and the construction of the self. He states, "Consciousness is the feeling of what happens-our mind noticing the body's reaction to the world and responding to that experience...." Notice the word "feeling," in Damasio's comment. Feeling comes from bodily sensation, and felt experience lives within that sensation....

And of course Ken Wilber's works on the Transformation of Consciousness, the Spectrum Of Consciousness, and Integral Psychology, have supported and influenced the way we engage in thought, experiencing and awareness and behavior. And of course, we have Christof Koch's neuroscientific exploration into the physical origins of consciousness in the brain, and how this knowledge can be utilized to measure consciousness in natural and artificial systems. 

I think we are approaching a fascinating edge-frontier in taking further steps to scientifically and experientially examine more deeply what it is that living in our introspective experience, and always changing each time we directly refer our attention and awareness what is living within us, and not just in emotion or feeling, but more deeply in our ongoing living felt experiences. 

Sal Barba, PhD., BCIA-BCN

Center for Complementary Medicine, Inc. Suites 344-345

Seattle, Washington 98103   

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[John Anderson]

Well said, Sal!

John 

John S Anderson, MA, BCB, BCN, QEEG-D

Minnesota NeuroTraining Institute

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[Rustam Yumash]

This is a great unique discussion that is essential to our field and I am grateful to you all for contributing. 

It will be great to continue with refining the theory of Neurofeedback by brining in all the latest thinking and neuroscience , including learning theories. 

The crucial point here that first person experience is a blind spot in science as discussed in the this podcast with Adam Frank and Les Fridman: CAJmDZow8ggp

Adam noted that the subjective dimension is not an error — it is an intrinsic limitation of third-person scientific method.

There is a neurophenomenology of first-person experience, and it is essential not only for humans but for any organism capable of adaptive behaviour. If Neurofeedback aims to support agency, self-regulation, and integration, then this experiential layer cannot be dismissed.

At the same time, it’s important to emphasise that conscious experience is an emergent phenomenon — built upon multi-layered regulatory processes, most of which operate below awareness. ILF Neurofeedback seems to work precisely because it interfaces with these foundational processes while allowing conscious awareness to play a modulatory, integrative role.

I am wondering how we could continue as a think tank and formulate some sort of statement covering main elements. 

Thank you 

Rustam  

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[John Anderson]

Rustam,

You state: "At the same time, it’s important to emphasise that conscious experience is an emergent phenomenon — built upon multi-layered regulatory processes, most of which operate below awareness. ILF Neurofeedback seems to work precisely because it interfaces with these foundational processes while allowing conscious awareness to play a modulatory, integrative role."

I suggest that consciousness / conscious experience is fundamental/foundational and what you describe is cognitive activity, which is, as you say, "built upon multi-layered regulatory processes, most of which operate below awareness." I would insert below 'conscious' awareness.  My perception/experience is that all the conscious cognitive activity that we so identify with is, to a greater or lesser extent, noise and is a component of many mental and emotional health disorders, particularly when unregulated.  I suspect that ILF and similar types of training facilitate the individual's access to consciousness levels that allow for the more effective modulation of that noise.  Most meditative practices seek to quiet the noise or eliminate it altogether.

John

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[Siegfried Othmer]

Salvatore Barba—

You write: “If we as clinicians don't pause the system from time to time to support the client to attend the experience they are having, we support them to by-pass the living wisdom in their bodily experience.” 

With operant conditioning, the felt response of the trainee early in the process is likely to revolve around the training process itself, as the rewards have been elevated to be central in the process. So we may find ourselves talking about engagement, frustration level, boredom, staying awake, etc., rather than about progress toward the clinical objectives, which only enters the conversation later. 

With Endogenous Neuromodulation, it is imperative to establish quite early that we are heading in a positive direction. We have to initiate the process to learn how to guide it going forward. The first observables are state shifts induced by the training. This is most likely to be in the direction of greater calmness and diminished arousal level. If that is not the case, then immediate intervention is called for to change protocol. So it is in fact obligatory to pause the training at six to ten minutes and inquire into the trainee’s experience. 

If we are on a positive trajectory, one can relax a bit going forward and increase the training epoch length. Later in the training, other protocols may be introduced, making for brief training epochs throughout the process in the general case. Inquiry follows at every break in the training, roughly every ten to fifteen minutes. There is no other basis for moving the agenda forward than what the client is reporting, plus observations by the clinician and reports from caregivers. 

The conversation focuses on the principal regulatory domains: arousal regulation, affect regulation, and autonomic regulation. They yield observables on which the trainee can readily report: alertness, vigilance, calmness, agitation, irritability, fatigue, etc. Even subtle shifts in these parameters suffice to guide the journey. Additionally, there is the obvious focus on symptoms on which the trainee is able to report. 

So we have three learning curves: 1) the brain is getting acquainted with the feedback loop, learning to extract ever more salient information from the signal stream at each placement; 2) trainees are learning to tune into their internal state by way of the conversations; and 3) the clinician develops an ever better sense of what protocols are needed, and in what sequence. The linchpin in all of this is the quality of the interaction between the clinician and the trainee. This is all the more important because in our work we do not routinely rely on information in the EEG spectrum except perhaps to optimize the accompanying inhibit protocol. 

Endogenous Neuromodulation compels one to orient toward a systems-level conception, by virtue of the focus on core state regulation, as well as the nature of the process of getting there. The training does not target symptoms per se; rather, symptoms are seen as indicators for more basic patterns of dysregulation. These map into protocols. In the final analysis, we have a pairing here of a training process that is entirely covert, and may well lie outside the realm of awareness of the trainee, with feedback to the clinician that depends on conscious appraisal of the prevailing status. 

Siegfried 

[Salvatore Barba]

"At the same time, it’s important to emphasize that conscious experience is an emergent phenomenon — built upon multi-layered regulatory processes, most of which operate below awareness. ILF Neurofeedback seems to work precisely because it interfaces with these foundational processes while allowing conscious awareness to play a modulatory, integrative role."

Nicely said Rustam! I think your comment opens further a much needed experiential/phenomenological component that further suggests the complexity of felt experiencing, which is often unconscious until learning how to directly refer to it, and is multi-layered in its complexities and implications. I think that we can frame this idea into the concept of  "a neurophenomenology of first-person experience." Often, this is what is level of a person is left out in our research methodology! 

There is always an implied further edge that will suggest new meaning and change when the interaction from up and down-vis-a-vis is allowed within the listening atmosphere with self and other. However, that said, Rustam, can you please describe more about what you mean when you say, "while allowing conscious awareness to play a modulatory, integrative role." Also, please say more about "integrative." We don't use that term "integrative" very often in the land of NFB. We often discuss quantitative results, and we discuss our data findings more conceptually in a frozen bound perspective or schema. To use "integrative," is to imply that the clinician is also included in the interaction between client and the digital training process. Whereas, this is not generally the case.  For example, let's say a client comes in, and they report that historically they cannot see images, and therefore, this clinical feature is habituated from the possibility of noticing a nuance emerging from the training that is different. The diagnostic paradigm suggests the clinical presentation is A-Fantasia, therefore, the client cannot make use of active imagination within the "integrative" process between their brain, their agency and the reward process. Suddenly, you as the clinician decide to step out from the Global diagnostic agreement that the client has "A-Fantasia." In your own felt sense, you discover an edge of something new, and you bring it to the client's attention by having them "fantasize," that they can see images when they open or close their eyes. The protocol that you have designed from your neuro-network analysis when studying the locations in the brain that suggests the areas you are targeting have not been regulating, for example at: BA 8, BA 9, BA 7, BA 19, BA 46, 40, and BA 25, etc., but the designed protocol and the training process is beginning to support them to think/feel/visualize/imagine behind their habituated state, which renders this "A-Fantasia," as unconscious.

However, inviting the client to step out of their habituated state might be compared to asking a blind person to pretend that they can see! Absurd, is it not? However, this is really not that different when we listen and attend to the edge of our felt experience, where we now begin to listen to something there inside that is not quite clear, fuzzy (as a matter of fact), often not logical but distinctly felt, and directly related to the whole of the problem, not just the parts! The client now tries it (interphase) while training, then pursues the nuance of their newly felt experience while training, and continues to transfer experience and training impact into their daily life. In two or three weeks, the client begins to report that they started to experience a small moment where they could actually visualize..... now that is a change that has arisen from the multi-layered complex living in their experience, and is beginning to peak through their habituated state.... here at this point we can appreciate the concept of "habituated," to an opening suggesting new possibilities for the client......whom never "thought" was possible. 

Our neuromodulation technology is a profound method. A very useful method, but it is not the whole of the client's potential living in the phenomenology of their felt experiencing. If the technology is working the hope is that the brain-body-mind experiencing will regulate, meaning that their will be greater resonance between a person's on-going conscious relationship with that edge living in their body by which new symbolization, schemas, concepts and thoughts will bring new possibilities of positive change, if we do not become lost in units of thinking and learn to become more tolerant of knowing when to drop the units of thinking (objective measuring, methods, etc.) and allow the "more" living in one's felt edge to speak and create new meaning and direction.

I am not implying that one way of engaging in thought, etc., is better than the other. That said, I am suggesting that we allow our discomfort to live with the living whole experienced in our body's way of knowing what wants to come into awareness and to be known. 

One humbling example of the previous illustration is that when I began to read these email streams, I was both excited and intimidated; an old narrative began to surface. The old narrative needed to be heard, but also so did my own edge of something there inside needing to be heard and attended to. The old narrative was the concept of my self, the archaic symbolization--an early developmental schema that helped at one time..."don't make waves...it's too much work....no one listens to you any way, etc. etc...." We all do this and have these experiences, etc. But, when we listen more carefully to that edge in thought/feeling/sensation, something fresh and new can come; something that we cannot contrive or conceptualize.

When that edge becomes known then there are new possibilities that can open. Methods do not change human beings. Methods facilitate a person to hopefully listen to their own wisdom that is never felt the same way when coming back to directly refer to "what's there now!" This can become a rather daunting process when you think about it. Most of us would rather lose ourselves in concepts, symbols and schemas without truly understanding ourselves, each other and our science because our science teaches us to trust our objective measures, and our units of thinking to come to our logical conclusions. I have no argument with this as a clinician and neuroscientist! We really need to study ourselves as well as our clients and our scientific instruments.

Years ago, I was informed by someone in our profession that I should not have real time maps on the screen while the client is training. I ran an experiment with the person objecting to my clinical training approach. We discovered that the client obtained better results when they could have visual access to real time maps while training with the NFB game. They quickly learned (I love learning theory!!!) with a little bit of direction, to significantly lower their threshold of muscle artifact, and began to obtain increased rewards This experience of the client opened into a way to listen and observe that was not present  a priory. Experiments are often useful for learning, if they are presented ethically.....

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts! Something is happening here!

Kindly,

Sal   

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[John Anderson]

Siegfried, Sal and All, 

Siegfried and Sal make excellent points. The collaborative approach to training stands in contrast to the 'hook them up and let them train' philosophy of neurofeedback. The conversation/interaction with the client and the training adjustments that may follow are essential for the process to proceed optimally.  Of course the great thing about feedback is that it provides information even without explanation or guidance or adjustments and people often make amazing progress, even without optimal support.

John 

John S Anderson, MA, BCB, BCN, QEEG-D

Minnesota NeuroTraining Institute

www.neurofeedback-institute.com

qeeg...@gmail.com

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[Ed Hamlin]

Beautifully stated, Siegfried, and your description of the practice process is very important for neurotherapists to incorporate.  Our field would likely be further along in its advancement if we'd patterned our model on von Bertalanffy's systems biology than Skinner's mechanistic operant conditioning model.  Your process description incorporates many more elements of the neuroregulatory system than the traditional approach, which only focuses on isolated elements of the EEG ignoring the mental components. 

Thanks to all contributing to or just following this thread   Ed Hamlin 

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[Siegfried Othmer]

A very left-brained attorney was referred to NF by her MD. She didn’t quite track the explanation she was given. She would have to be convinced by the actual experience. After the training session, during which she watched a movie, she asked: “Why do I feel different? I didn’t do anything.” 

A man who had just finished his first NeurOptimal training session complained to the clinician that while he enjoyed the experience and did in fact feel better, “You need to get rid of those irritating dropouts in the music.” These interrupts constituted the entirety of the feedback in NeurOptimal...

In neither case did consciousness play any role in what transpired "where the rubber meets the road,” namely where the brain—and only the brain—was reacting to the feedback signal to inform its own state trajectory. At the conscious level, both individuals ‘gave permission’ for the process to unfold, the one more reluctantly than the other, but how it unfolded in each case was entirely beyond the purview of consciousness. Moreover, the consequences of the brain’s response to the feedback signal do not rise to the level of consciousness until sometime later, if at all. We need to have absolute clarity on this 'neurophysiological essence' of NF (i.e., 'circular causality’ in the case of endogenous neuromodulation) where consciousness—at best—can only have a role with respect to establishing the context for the proceedings. 

At the tactical level, the implications are huge. If you admit consciousness into the discussion with respect to the ‘essence’ of NF, the placebo ghost comes in the door with it. We have already allowed the placebo model to forestall the broader recognition of this field for nearly half a century. 

Siegfried Othmer 

…… 

[Rustam Yumash]

John, 

I agree to great extend with your proposition. 

I am practicing Mindfullness and very much aware of the role of conscious awareness. 

The question then how we use neuromodulation to enable the brain to be capable of producing higher state of consciousness. 

We are assisting the brain development to arrive at contemplative wisdom of being aka enlightenment, able to  deconstruct samsara and find nirvana of clarity. 

Is this what you think the common goal of neuromodulation ? 

Kind regards 

Rustam 

Rustam Yumash
Unit 1714 / 397 Christine Avenue 
Varsity Lakes, QLD , 4227
Phone 0413181147
Email: r.yu...@icloud.com

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[Rustam Yumash]

Thank you Sigfried, this is certainly a well defined position. I have some difficulties with the statement  “The trainee cannot attach valence to the ILF signal itself", but they do attach valence—consciously or implicitly—to the state changes that ILF induces. This subtle registration is essential: it guides meaning-making, supports the predictive self-model, and becomes part of the therapeutic integration. The mechanism may be covert, but the phenomenology is not.

I feel the model is too mechanistic and achieved its objective by avoiding the complexity of consciousness. Here is where we should define consciousness. One of the most impressive theories I have come across is in the article by K. V. Anokhin:"The Cognitome: Seeking the Fundamental Neuroscience of a Theory of Consciousness".

I asked Chat GPT to summarise it: 

Essence of Anokhin’s Theory (from  article)

1. The fundamental unit of brain–behavior organization is the Functional System

Anokhin proposed that behavior is not produced by isolated reflex arcs or separate neural centers, but by functional systems—dynamic coalitions of neural and bodily processes organized around achieving an adaptive result.

✔ A functional system integrates afferent information, decision processes, action programs, results of action, and feedback (reafferentation) into one whole cycle.
— Evidence: “A functional system is any organization… ending with a useful adaptive effect for the body”.

✔ These systems are holistic, not tied to localized anatomy but spanning many neural and humoral processes.

✔ Anokhin emphasized that this model bridges the gap between physiology and psychology.
— “We will never be able to cross the bridge… if we do not reveal principles characteristic only of holistic organization.”

---

2. The core mechanism: the Operational Architectonics of Behavior

Anokhin formalized the universal architecture of any behavioral act:

1. Afferent synthesis → collecting internal & external signals

2. Decision-making

3. “Action acceptor” → internal model of the desired result

4. Action program formation

5. Execution of action

6. Receiving results of action (reafferentation)

7. Comparison with the action acceptor

8. Modification of the system

This entire cycle is referred to as the operational architectonics of behavior.
— Described clearly:

✔ Importantly, all behavioral acts share this same architectonic structure—from reflexes to complex conscious actions.
— “Fundamental isomorphism of the operational architectonics of all behavioral acts.”

---

3. Anticipatory Reflection: the “Action Acceptor”

A key concept in Anokhin’s theory is the action acceptor—a neural model of the expected result of action.

✔ It is the predictive, anticipatory mechanism guiding behavior.
— “The adaptive result is the model of a familiar event… anticipatory reflection of future relationships with the environment.”

This is the first explicitly predictive model in Russian neurophysiology.

✔ Subjective experience = stored anticipatory models
Thus behavior is driven by mental representations, not just physiological reflex chains.

---

4. Feedback Afferentation (Reafference) Drives Adaptation

Behavior is continuously updated by comparing:

• predicted result (action acceptor)

• actual result (reafferent feedback)

✔ This is a closed-loop, self-correcting architecture.
— “…recurrent afferentation… confrontation with the action acceptor… modification of the initial systems.”

This anticipatory + feedback structure is central to your ILF framework.

---

5. Consciousness emerges from functional systems, not from neural centers

Anokhin rejected both Pavlovian reflexology and “center-based” explanations (e.g., neural correlates of consciousness).

✔ Consciousness is not reducible to physiology.
✔ But it is also not an independent metaphysical entity.

Instead:

Consciousness is a process within the hypernetwork of functional systems.

The article states:
— “Subjective phenomena must be related not to physiological processes in a neural network but with cognitive processes in the neural hypernetwork – the cognitome.”

This “hypernetwork” is the collection of all functional systems.

---

6. Systems Are Goal-Directed: This Is the Basis for Agency

Anokhin’s central breakthrough is that biological systems operate according to adaptive outcomes, not stimulus–response chains.

✔ Behavior is determined by future-oriented goals (“anticipated results”), not past stimuli.
— “Behavior determined by subjective experience, not reflex processes.”

✔ This introduces biological agency at the systems level (not at the molecular level).

This is exactly the conceptual space where your model of endogenous neuromodulation belongs.

---

7. Each neuron is part of multiple functional systems (Shvyrkov)

Shvyrkov extended the theory to show:

✔ Neurons are not specialized for one specific “function.”
✔ Instead, they belong to many functional systems as elements of subjective experience.
— “Individual neurons… are integral elements of subjective experience.”

This supports your idea of distributed agency and the ILF nested oscillatory integration model.

---

In One Sentence

Anokhin’s Functional Systems Theory states that behavior and consciousness arise from dynamic, goal-oriented, predictive, self-correcting coalitions of neural and bodily processes—that is, functional systems—organized around achieving adaptive results through anticipatory modeling and feedback-driven refinement.

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[Siegfried Othmer]

Rustam—

You write:

“ 'The trainee cannot attach valence to the ILF signal itself', but trainees do attach valence—consciously or implicitly—to the state changes that ILF induces." 

There is no disagreement here, but these two realms are inherently separate and distinct. The brain does the work and we consciously appraise the consequences in terms of state shifts and movement in symptom severity. 

As for Anokhin’s Theory, 2. The core mechanism: the Operational Architectonics of Behavior closely resembles how I describe the process of what happens in the taking of a CPT test. Consciousness is very much involved here. We come finally to the last part: Modification of the System. 

We know that in the CPT, the learning curve largely flattens out in a couple of minutes. On that basis, I suspect that CPT scores would not normalize rapidly if we just sat people down to take the CPT a number of times. In our Intro courses, attendees get to do seven sessions, and that typically suffices to take people above norms, with an average change of half a standard deviation across all four subtests, even though we are headroom-limited (one cannot do better than zero omission errors).  

Significantly, the elements of #2 are not applicable to any description of the ILF NF process. One describes an event-related process, and the other involves a continuous process. The one refers to the engaged brain, and the other is oriented to the resting brain. The import of our developmental trajectory over the decades—the journey to the deep ILF regime—is that the key to functionality of the engaged brain lies in the behavior of the resting brain. 

Perhaps the first person to articulate the prediction model was Merleau-Ponty. “Perception is the outcome of a preceding action.” Our perception is shaped by what we are looking for. At the neurophysiological level, and with reference to the resting state, the trajectory of the state vector is predictable on the basis of what has led up to the present moment. However, none of this has any visibility at the conscious level. The brain owns this. 

Siegfried

On Dec 1, 2025, at 11:42 PM, Rustam Yumash <ryu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you Siegfried, this is certainly a well defined position. I have some difficulties with the statement  “The trainee cannot attach valence to the ILF signal itself", but they do attach valence—consciously or implicitly—to the state changes that ILF induces. This subtle registration is essential: it guides meaning-making, supports the predictive self-model, and becomes part of the therapeutic integration. The mechanism may be covert, but the phenomenology is not.

[Rustam Yumash]

Thank you Randy. 

I just listened to his podcast about his theory. Very interesting . WIll certainly read the book one day . It seems aligns well with Buddhist approach , which he mentions in the podcast. 

Rustam  

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[Salvatore Barba]

Sigfried! 

All of your points are well received! I think your perspective is accurate, and also relative! You are a brilliant scholar and clinician!

Unfortunately, you and Ed haven't reflected back a clue or perhaps value in my content from previous texts! 

Unfortunately, what has gotten us into the Placebo problem that you suggest is relative, and could occur in any treatment modality! Both your approach and mine are similar and relative from a Unit Model of Science; which this paradigm requires greater implications to reshape it into a more encompassing paradigm! 

The Unit model of science is relevant, but also archaic, and frozen in its structure of thinking and in its procedures! It also promotes neuro-physiological reductionism fostered by the classic deterministic movement of the 19th and 20th century, who do not consider the subjective felt experiences of the client. His is a Neo-Cartesian challenge that can't exactly change by being in it! The machine is not Nature! Human beings are nature, and therefore there is an absence of the natural response that comes with tremendous implications for carrying forward new meaning, new schemas, new symbolizations, new concepts, new ways to think at the edge, when felt experience is brought into the training session in real time! This is a larger issue that trickles down into the office of our work. Reductionism kills felt experience!!! Furthermore, we can indirectly, if not careful, support the client to misidentify the method as what changes them! This problem is further addressed in the treatise, "The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Science, and our Daily Lives," by Watson, Batchelor and Clayton. However, the late Dr. Robert Moore takes these issues into greater depth in his last book, "Facing the Dragon: Confronting Personal and Spiritual Grandiosity," before his death in 2016. His research and insights are a helpful piece of work for all of us to learn from.

In the mechanistic model, the machine treats the human being as a peripheral mechanism, and the credit for change rests upon the digital machine. Ignorant, as I may humbly be, the machine can degrade the living consciousness that waits to be directly referred to during any given neuromodulation session! Both the training process and the component of simply guiding the client to engage in a simple introspective task by directly referring them to attend to their felt experience, is exactly what a reductionist view over looks! 

Yes, we support the brain to change, but that neuroregulation has the potential to directly support the client to listen to their felt sense of that slight change you noticed hence observing your client you that you illustrate from the training in real time NFB training!  

The work occurs in real time training, as well as the process of carrying forward the work into new steps of change; or as my dear friend and colleague of 20 plus years, the late Joel Lubar would say  "We must help the client transfer the training into their daily life," or else you do have a placebo effect, followed by the return to the archaic troublesome behavior! Joel wrote about this, and we gave seminars at ISNR and elsewhere on these points! 

I invite this list serve to read chapter 3, "Optimal Procedures in Z-Score Neurofeedback:Strategies for Maximizing Learning for Surface and LORETA Neurofeedback!" by Joel Lubar, in the book, "Z Score Neurofeedback, Clinical Applications."

Perhaps, the fundamental differences here between us is that I use SW LORETA to obtain similar results as the Neurofeedback systems you are so amazingly skillful at obtaining the results you share with us!  Unfortunately, years ago, I was trained to use ILF, and other NFB modalities, but I later fell in love with 19 channel SWLORETA. 

For whatever it is worth, I do touch upon these points in my previous responses on our text streams in chapter 12, "Introduction to Quantitative EEG and Neurofeedback, 3rd Edition."

Thank you Siegfried. I do respect your brilliance, and the work you do to help and teach all of us! You have made significant contributions to our field! You have brought integrity and compassion through your work! And you are absolutely wonderful to spire with! 

Humbly, and warmly,

Sal

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 2, 2025, at 4:56 AM, Rustam Yumash <ryu...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Siegfried Othmer]

Sal—

Thank you for your generous sentiments. My vantage point is that of a (recovering) physicist. In the 38-year professional partnership with Sue, she was the clinician and I was involved more on the theory and engineering side. So I don’t feel competent to engage you on the matters that you bought up. I am in narrow focus by virtue of my skill set, and mission-oriented by virtue of the dire state of mental health, which is in precipitous decline in the US and in peer countries. Over the two-year period of 23-24, inpatient mental health claims ramped up by 80%; outpatient claims climbed by 40%. This is cataclysmic. The greatest increase was for claims due to anxiety, depression and developmental disorders. These are in our wheelhouse. By the age of seven, some 20% of Medicaid-covered children are on psych meds. This does not bode well for their future. Every age category is now declining in health status. 

Our society lacks resilience by virtue of dysregulation of core regulatory networks. Just consider for a moment all the measures undertaken in our society to manage physiological state, from coffee in the morning to the cornucopia of licit and illicit drugs. The problems begin in infancy (or before), and are best redressed with a move to a prevention and optimal functioning model starting in infancy, for which endogenous neuromodulation in the ILF constitutes the uniquely appropriate remedy. I call this the “Healthy Start” model. We face no competition on that turf. The clinical focus would be on developmental disorders and attachment issues, including in particular the autism spectrum. 

With respect to your interest in Z-score training, a bit of history: That may well have emerged out of discussions I had with Tom Collura in the 2002-4 time frame, but we didn’t then discuss the Z-score aspect. Conceptually, I felt more attracted to the totally dynamic approach that was taken by Val Brown. We ended up with something in-between—dynamic thresholding to restrict focus to the extremes, with adjustable level of overall aggressiveness of the inhibits. 

In the perspective of control system theory in application to self-regulating systems, unconditional system stability is the prime directive, and inhibit schemes are front-line approaches in pursuit of that objective. It has been a key constituent in the three generations of systems we helped to design.

The centrality of cerebral stability in mental health is not fully appreciated, and I cover this topic in my talk at the conference. What I call the macro-instabilities—seizures, migraines, dysautonomia, restless leg syndrome— are well recognized, but we are dealing with a continuous distribution that goes all the way down to where the instabilities seem more innocuous but clearly place limits on performance. 

For example, the discrete errors we track in the CPT can be thought of in the frame of cerebral instability. I call them micro-instabilities. The intermediate range is the most problematic in one sense, in that it can be easily over-looked as a mechanism—in schizophrenia, Tourette Syndrome, autism, rage behavior, the dementias, PTSD and other trauma syndromes—because we have competing narratives in the conventional mental health frame. 

The instability model should be considered whenever we encounter episodic bizarre or extreme behavior that doesn’t fit with the person we know. This is the story of our son Brian that got us into NF. Finally, we also have the behaviorally triggered instabilities, such as the disasters that may be unleashed by hypocapnia induced by over-breathing, and hypoglycemic episodes following a dollop of glucose. Hormonally triggered instabilities in PMS also lie within our clinical reach. PMS is an index to brain dysregulation.  

The most potent remedy for the instabilities, including those that are behaviorally or hormonally triggered, remains our ILF NF, with reliance on inter-hemispheric placement on homotopic sites, and operation at the person’s Optimal Response Frequency. Training is by way of Endogenous Neuromodulation, which allows for the necessary subtlety for the brain to finds its way toward stability. Cerebral stability also depends on calming hyper-excitability, which is pursued with the arousal level training. The inhibit protocol is the third leg of the stool.

Siegfried 

On Dec 2, 2025, at 1:10 PM, 'Salvatore Barba' via ISNR_Members_Forum <isnr_memb...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Siegfried! 

[Salvatore Barba]

Siegfried!

My goodness! You have such an amazing mind! 

I would love to obtain your talk to sit more deeply with what I would like to learn more from you. Your spouse was a wonderful clinician, and I am so truly sorry that she is gone!

In loving kindness!

Sal

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 3, 2025, at 10:28 AM, 'Siegfried Othmer' via ISNR_Members_Forum <isnr_memb...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



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[Siegfried Othmer]

Sal—

Those schooled in the hard sciences do better with a more limited variable space.
Stay tuned…

Siegfried

> On Dec 3, 2025, at 12:16 PM, 'Salvatore Barba' via ISNR_Members_Forum <isnr_memb...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> Siegfried!