Brain Trainer.com V Neuroptimal V 40 years of Zen

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Wrote a review+ blog post of my experience using EEG Neurofeedback https://therationalbiohacker.net/2019/01/19/eeg-neurofeedback-by-brain-trainer-review-by-the-rational-biohacker/

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Hi Rational, good review of Pete Van Deusen’s Brain-Trainer system, and the Pocket Neurobics Q-Wiz amplifier.

Also appreciate your other blog post on HEG,

Best regards,

William Croft

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I think the point he was trying to make is that with Brain-Trainer or HEG, you actually get to learn something about neurofeedback protocols and brain training. Versus automated systems like NeurOptimal where you become a ‘practitioner’, but end up with little knowledge of neuroscience or neurofeedback protocols. Or 40 Years of Zen, which I believe costs well over $10K for one week of intensive training, again, no transfer of neuroscience knowledge.

I’m not sure the current pricing for NeurOptimal, but this site claims $7K to $10K for the unmetered system. In contrast a decent Brain-Trainer setup just costs a couple thousand. Another comparison point would be the three dimensional Loreta Z-Score systems such as Brainmaster, which are in the $6K to $10K region.

NeurOptimal certainly has it’s applications and has helped many. But don’t expect to learn anything about neurofeedback in general. It is a turn key system, closed and secretive about it’s internal operation.

Regards, William Croft, OpenBCI

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Is it only 4 channels, and which channels?

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Brain-Trainer sells both 4 and 2 channel hardware. Channels can be assigned to any 10-20 site on the scalp. NeuroOptimal is a 2 channel system at C3, C4 locations.

However also note that the Q-Wiz 4 channel amp sold by Brain-Trainer, has a 25 pin connector (DB-25), that allows full cap assessments to be easily done. Four channels at a time, but switched electrically. Full cap QEEG is typically 19+ channels / sites. Pete uses a couple additional sites (Fz Oz ?) Doing a QEEG like this gives basic amplitudes, but not coherence beyond the 4 channels being recorded. Normal 19+ channel QEEG amps (such as Brainmaster, etc.) sample all 19 channels at once. Thus give whole head coherence. And can also compute 3D voxels with appropriate sLoreta software.