The Science Behind Brain Sound

The Science Behind BSS | A Brief History

What are Brainwaves?

Your brain is made up of billions of brain cells called neurons, which use electricity to communicate with each other. The combination of millions of neurons sending signals at once produces an enormous amount of electrical activity in the brain, which can be detected using sensitive medical equipment (such as an EEG), measuring electricity levels over areas of the scalp.

The combination of electrical activity of the brain is commonly called a BrainWave pattern, because of its cyclic, "wave-like" nature.

Below is one of the first recordings of brain activity.

Here is a more modern EEG recording:

The Significance of Brainwaves

With the discovery of brainwaves came the discovery that electrical activity in the brain will change depending on what the person is doing. For instance, the brainwaves of a sleeping person are vastly different than the brainwaves of someone wide awake. Over the years, more sensitive equipment has brought us closer to figuring out exactly what brainwaves represent and with that, what they mean about a person's health and state of mind.

You can tell a lot about a person simply by observing their brainwave patterns. For example, anxious people tend to produce an overabundance of high Beta waves while people with ADD/ADHD tend to produce an overabundance of slower Alpha/Theta brainwaves.

Researchers have found that not only are brainwaves representative of of mental state, but they can be stimulated to change a person's mental state, and even help with a variety of mental disorders. Certain Brainwave patterns can even be used to access exotic or extraordinary experiences such as deep meditation.

Jump to topic: Headphone-Free Entrainment

Stimulating brainwaves with sound

BSS stimulates brainwaves in a variety of ways through a complex neural process known as Brainwave Entrainment (or BWE).

What is Brainwave Entrainment?

Brainwave Entrainment refers to the brain's electrical response to rhythmic sensory stimulation, such as pulses of sound or light.

When the brain is given a stimulus, through the ears, eyes or other senses, it emits an electrical charge in response, called a Cortical Evoked Response (shown below). These electrical responses travel throughout the brain to become what you "see and hear".

When the brain is presented with a rhythmic stimulus, such as a drum beat for example, the rhythm is reproduced in the brain in the form of these electrical impulses. If the rhythm becomes fast and consistent enough, it can start to resemble the natural internal rhythms of the brain, called brainwaves. When this happens, the brain responds by synchronizing its own electric cycles to the same rhythm. This is commonly called the Frequency Following Response (or FFR):

FFR can be useful because brainwaves are very much related to mental state. For example, a 4 Hz brainwave is associated with sleep, so a 4 Hz sound pattern would help reproduce the sleep state in your brain. The same concept can be applied to many mental states, including concentration, creativity and relaxation.

If you listen closely to the output of the program, you will hear small, rapid pulses of sound. As the session progresses, the frequency rate of these pulses is changed slowly, thereby changing your brainwave patterns and guiding your mind to various useful mental states.

Brainwave Entrainment has over 70 years of research behind it. See a Short History Of Brainwave Entrainment.

Brain Sound Studio's unique approach to brainwave entrainment

Fig. 1

EEG Recording. Spectrogram View (4-30), ~1.2 minute time lapse, middle of an Alpha-focused session

Brain Sound Studio stimulates the brain by embedding brainwave entraining frequencies into sounds files. Instead of relying on tones combining to form beats, BSS manually forms the beats itself, using the existing sound as the "carrier". The entraining frequencies may be barely noticeable to the listener(s) while still dramatically altering their brainwave patterns. There are many filters provided in BSS, all with different qualities, different advantages, and they can be used together for even stronger entrainment.

BSS can also generate binaural or monaural beats, which are the most commonly used brainwave entrainment techniques. The tone beats are automatically synchronized with the frequencies embedded into the sound.

How can BSS be used without headphones?

Many entrainment techniques used in BSS are revolutionary in that they do not require headphones or even stereo speakers. Veterans of brainwave entrainment may find this strange, since headphones are such a traditional part of the brainwave entrainment experience. The reality of the matter is, however, that headphones have never been required for use with anything except Binaural beats, which present a slightly different tone to each ear. Monaural beats can be used very effectively without headphones, for example. So can pulses, clicks and light stimulation.

Any repeating stimulus can entrain the brain. Pulses of sound, light, vibrations or even electricity (CES machines). Brain Sound Studio uses many techniques that don't rely on left-right speaker assignments. In doing so, headphones become unnecessary. Neurons in the brain will fire a response to any stimulus, whether you have headphones on or not. By presenting a repeating stimulus to the brain, even one that is quite subtle, the brain will start to entrain, with or without headphones. What we have done with BSS is perfect this process through extensive testing and optimization.

Further Reading

Bermer, F. "Cerebral and cerebellar potentials." Physiological Review, 38, 357-388.

Chatrian, G., Petersen, M., Lazarte, J. "Responses to Clicks from the Human Brain: Some Depth Electrographic Observation." Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 12: 479-487

Gontgovsky, S., Montgomery, D. "The Physiological Response to "Beta Sweep" Entrainment." Proceedings AAPB Thirteenth Anniversary Annual Meeting, 62-65.

Oster, G. "Auditory beats in the brain." Scientific American, 229, 94-102.

Shealy, N., Cady, R., Cox, R., Liss, S., Clossen, W., Veehoff, D. "A Comparison of Depths of Relaxation Produced by Various Techniques and Neurotransmitters by Brainwave Entrainment" - Shealy and Forest Institute of Professional Psychology A study done for Comprehensive Health Care, Unpublished.

Siever, D. "Isochronic Tones and Brainwave Entrainment." Unpublished, but available through his book the Rediscovery of Audio-Visual Entrainment.

Walter, V. J. & Walter, W. G. "The central effects of rhythmic sensory stimulation." Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 1, 57-86.

See References for more.

More on Brainwaves:

Brainwave Bands

There are certain bands (subcategories) of brainwaves that are related to specific functions of the body and mind. Brainwave stimulation can be a very effective treatment for many types of mental and physical disorders. It can also be a gateway into exotic or extraordinary mental states.

Dominant Brainwaves

The brain is constantly emitting nearly every type of brainwave. However, based on the strength of the certain bands of brainwaves, and depending on where the EEG electrodes are placed on the scalp, a person can be said to be "in" a certain brainwave. As you are reading this, you are (assumedly) wide awake and are most likely producing more Beta brainwaves than any other type. So you could be said to be "in" Beta.

Mental States

By stimulating the brain to produce or decrease certain brainwaves bands, we can induce a huge variety types of mental states and emotional reactions, including meditation, excitation, motivation, anxiety, irritation, sexual excitement, relaxation, spiritualism and more.

For instance, if we were to embed Alpha waves into music, listening to it would be very relaxing, even causing your body to physically relax. If we embedded Theta waves into music, people might even fall asleep!

Specific Brainwave Frequencies

In addition to bands of brainwaves, very specific frequencies have been shown to have certain effects, such as stimulating the release Serotonin or human growth hormone (HGH).

Brainwaves Types