Neurofeedback using the Roshi/Amiga

 Dan Staso, PhD

Why do you recommend I use the neurofeedback unit Roshi/Amiga?

The Roshi/Amiga is one of the most gentle and safest neurofeedback I have encountered.  The majority of my clients begin to notice improvements after 2-8 sessions.  They commonly experience a subjective increase in ease, greater ability to follow conversations, to understand what is read, and to think more clearly.  There is a lessening of mental fog.  Many report a decrease in restlessness and an overall quieting of the mind.  They become more optimistic and have more positive thoughts.  They become more aware of their inner feelings.  They become more aware of their likes, dislikes, needs, and how to satisfy their needs.  They often become more thoughtful about life.  

What is the best way to train?

Keeping your eyes closed the entire session, listen to the tone and use your intention to keep the tone going in long stretches.  You can’t “make” the tone beep, as the control is not coming from the conscious part of the brain.  Try and find that "space" in your consciousness where you can “allow” the feedback tone to happen.  After a while you will move into a type of focused attention.  You may feel close to sleep, but not exactly asleep. 

From this space, your critical-logical mind becomes quieted.  You are learning to witness the training rather than trying to do the training.  You are learning to focus your attention and get into the zone with the least amount of effort.  When you are in this zone, your brain maximizes its repair and regeneration abilities.  It takes the opportunity to normalize itself.

It’s best to not judge or be critical of your performance.  Drop any attachment to the outcome and merely be interested in finding that space in your consciousness.   It’s a process of allowing, and not one of forcing. 

Who developed this unit and what is the purpose?

Chuck Davis in Los Angeles originated this design.  He was fascinated with Zen Buddhist masters and monitored their brainwaves.  He discovered that they showed dramatically reduced amplitude across the entire brainwave spectrum.  An electrical engineer by training, Chuck Davis wrote the software for the Amiga in the late 1980’s initially for him to reach these deep meditative states.  Training on the Roshi essentially is computer-assisted meditation.  In traditional meditation the brain has to follow its own guidelines without feedback.  This is why it takes effort and practice over many years.  Much of the learning by the brain is done by trial and error.  The Roshi takes all the guesswork out of it.  The overall amplitude is reduced as a result of this closed loop type of neurofeedback. The person trains for deeper and deeper states every session.  For some, results are rapid, and the general benefits are the same as for long term meditation.  For others, they may need several weeks or months of training to achieve similar results.  Training is gentle, safe, and long lasting. 

How does the Roshi accomplish such powerful results?

It does this in several ways.  The lights on the inside of the glasses are monitoring your brainwaves and feeding the dominant frequency signal back in an offset pattern.  Since the dominant frequency varies second by second, the frequency of the lights are constantly changing.  There is a slight delay (offset) in the photic feedback to the brain and this produces a decrease in the intensity and variability of the amplitude.  It is this decrease that is desired as it is during these “quieter” moments that the brain self-corrects itself.  Self regulation is the hallmark of all biofeedback systems.  The brain essentially learns to regulate itself as a result of having its own EEG patterns fed back to itself.  As such, the Roshi does not treat specific medical conditions.  It merely allows the brain to make its own adjustments and corrections.  The intervention is done entirely by the brain itself. 

Neuroscientists now believe that most of the problems in the brain has to do with phase, which is the speed of communication between neurons.  If the speed is too slow or too fast, the brain has problems managing itself.  The Roshi corrects phase errors through a process called phase shifting.  Phase shifting corrects imbalances of power between different parts of the brain.  An analogy would be a symphony where one section was playing out of tempo.  The conductor would want that section to get into the correct rhythm with the other sections. Correcting phase errors leads to enhanced efficiency, enhanced communication, and greater synchrony in the brain. 

The Roshi also increases entropy in the brain, which is a measure of complexity.   The opposite of entropy in this definition is the state of unconscious as a result of receiving anesthesiology during surgery.  The brain wave reduces to one simple waveform with no complexity.  All frequencies collapse into one wave.  Increasing entropy means increasing the range of frequency and the complexity of the wave within that frequency.  When the brainwaves are looked at closely, one sees a wavelet within the wave.  With more complexity, one sees wavelets within the wavelet within the wave.  There is no limit to how complex the brain can become, or how deep the wavelets can appear.  Increasing entropy is strongly correlated with increasing consciousness.  That accounts for clients reporting that they are becoming more aware of the information the brain is processing.  The brain is processing 11 million bits of information every second.  The mind, or consciousness, is aware of 40 of those bits.  Increasing entropy allows the person to become more mindful of what is going on with themselves and the world around them.  In essence, training on the Roshi is intentionally increasing consciousness, and there is no limit to how much that can increase

What other changes are happening?

Conscious experiences are reflected in microstates of brain activity.  This means that our stream of consciousness is actually a series of individual packets of energy bursts.  It’s sort of like a movie at a theater.  We see it as continuous action when in reality its individual photographs that are run together.  In the brain these microstates last 100-250 milliseconds each, or 1/10^th to 1/4^th of a second.  A microstate is a particular collection of a thought, feeling, visual imagery, or other mental/physical process.  Some of these microstates are common and repeat themselves.  Some appear very infrequently.  They are triggered by both internal and external stimuli and can be either conscious or unconscious.  Increasing entropy using the Roshi impacts brain microstates in two ways.  It helps the brain degrade (stop) various microstates, and it produces original microstates that never existed before.  What this translates to is greater ability to stop negative thoughts, interrupt unwanted behaviors, and have original solutions to old and new problems.  

Why are you downtraining Alpha in the frontal lobes?

Any alpha waves in the frontal lobes produce mental fog.   Decreasing alpha leaves a person with clarity of thought and an ability to be more mindful of their actions, feelings, and cognitions.  The other reason is that brain imaging consistently shows that positive emotions are predominantly located in the left frontal lobe while negative emotions originate from the right frontal lobe.  When a person feels depressed there is excessive alpha in the left frontal as compared to the right frontal.  This causes a decrease in power on the left side, which accounts for an increase in negative thoughts and feelings.  By reducing alpha on both sides, beta emerges as the dominant frequency in the left frontal lobe.  This relative increase in power accounts for the increase in positive thoughts and feelings.

Additional articles can be found at

http://www.joanfabian.net/roshi.asp