An Enhancement of Frontal EEG-alpha

Abstract

The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness, of frontal alpha enhancement in relaxation and meditation training. Alpha training at the frontal site is not the same psycho-physiologically as the much studied at the occipital site. Differences include 1) higher artifact, such as EMG activity of forehead muscles or EOG by eye movement, 2) very low amplitude of alpha waves unless the subject is in an extremely calm state of mind. For these reasons, the instrumentation and training methodology were modified from conventional systems. It was found that the participants were able to listen to music through the feedback systems and alpha feedback was accomplished by amplitude modulated music that is presented at the occurrence or disappearance of alpha. It seems that the frequency of alpha is related to psychophysiological state. For instance, slow alpha is related to passive concentration and fast alpha is related to active concentration. These are found by observation of brain waves during Yoga Asana and Savarsana. For relaxation training, therefore, the range of frequency in feedback were set to slow alpha (8 Hz〜10 Hz).