The Science Behind Neural Noise Synthesizer

The Science Behind NNS | 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.

Jump to topic: Headphone-Free Entrainment

Stimulating brainwaves with sound

NNS stimulates brainwaves through a scientific 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 nearly all mental states, including concentration, creativity and many others. It can even act as a gateway to exotic or extraordinary experiences, such as deep meditation.

If you listen closely to 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 solid research behind it. See a Short History Of Brainwave Entrainment.

Neural Noise Synthesizer'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

Neural Noise Synthesizer stimulates the brain by generating noise which is embedded with brainwave entraining frequencies, using our unique filtering system. For example, one NNS filter removes and replaces the higher frequencies generated by the Noise, in a circular pattern over time. Because NNS is generating noise that is structured to stimulate the brain over and over each second, the brain fires neural responses to the same rhythm. After about 6 minutes, brainwave entrainment is established, and the brain of the listener is synchronized to the frequencies embedded in the noise.

NNS can also generate binaural or monaural beats, which are the most commonly used brainwave entrainment techniques.

How can NNS be used without headphones?

Many entrainment techniques used in NNS 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. In fact, many ancient cultures used Drums to enter deeply relaxed 'trances' during Shamanic rituals. Though they may not have called it brainwave entrainment, the rhythmic stimulus of the drum could have been the cause of the "trance-like" states reported during such rituals.

Any repeating stimulus can entrain the brain. Pulses of sound, light, physical vibrations or even electricity (CES machines). Neural Noise Synthesizer 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 listening to the sounds generated by NNS, with or without headphones, the brain will start to entrain. What we have done with NNS is perfect this process through extensive testing and optimization.

What about Hemispheric Synchronization?

Hemispheric Synchronization is a byproduct of nearly all types of brainwave entrainment.

In 1980, Tsuyoshi Inouye and associates at the Department of Neuropsychiatry at Osaka University Medical School in Japan found that photic stimulation in the alpha range produced hemispheric synchronization. Dr. Norman Shealy later confirmed the effect, finding that photic stimulation produced "cerebral synchronization" in more than 5,000 patients. In 1984, Dr. Brockopp analyzed audio-visual brain stimulation and in particular hemispheric synchronization during EEG monitoring. He said "By inducing hemispheric coherence the machine can contribute to improved intellectual functioning of the brain."

There is similar evidence that CES (electrical stimulation), motion systems, acoustic field generators and even floatation tanks can increase EEG symmetry.

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.

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