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<p><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><img src="@@PLUGINFILE@@/Margaret%20Ayers.jpg" alt="Margaret Ayers" width="334" height="360" class="img-responsive atto_image_button_left">When Margaret Ayers was 17, she read the autobiography of Sri Aurobindo, a well -known yogi who reached states of Samadhi (a perfected state) in meditation. Meditation (presumably the first form of neurofeedback) was reported by the yogis before the birth of Christ to be means through which they could control their own brainwaves and bloodflow.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1rem;">In her early career, Margaret developed her own software that allowed for 250,000 samples of EEG data per seconds to be amplified and she began to analyze brainwaves. In 2007, she published a book called "Whispers from the Brain" which illustrated patterns in 19 medical conditions.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Around
the same time Joel Lubar was working in Barry Sterman’s lab, Margret Ayers was also
a lab assistant working under Barry Sterman. She had already earned a
bachelor’s degree in microbiology and a masters degree in psychology. In
Sterman’s lab, Ayers assisted him with neurofeedback on a young female
quadripelic. By the time they were done, this woman could feed herself.&nbsp; She also did four years of doctoral work in
clinical neuropsychology in Barry’s lab, but never wrote her dissertation
because it was blocked by Sterman. After this devastating blow, Ayers struck
out on her own to develop equipment and protocols to train the general
population (Robbins, 1999; Budzynski, 1999). She proved very successful.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Here is Siegfried Othmer's experience with his own son, Bryan, who suffered from epilepsy, and their initial interactions and successes with Margaret.</span></p><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/517285621?h=4109831c1b&amp;color=13979b&amp;title=0&amp;portrait=0" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Many of Margaret's protocols involved consideration of the thalamic nucleus that controlled either the symptom the patient was reporting, or the non-thalamic part of the brain that controlled the symptom. She would look to the area of the brain that the thalamic nucleus projected and place sensors over the cortical sites. Margaret's main protocols involved inhibiting theta frequency band activity and observing beta amplitudes movement to normal levels.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Of all things, Margaret may be best known for her work with patients in coma. She attempted to bring 42 people out of a coma within three days time from the start of training and she succeeded in 40 of the 42. Neurofeedback training could not last more than 3-5 minutes each time, so as to not fatigue the patient. She would wait 2 - 4 hours and then do another session. This work carried around the clock (the patient's sleep schedule was not based on time of day, but rather their own rhythms in coma, and their EEG would reveal if they were asleep and not to be trained/disturbed). According to her partner Penny Montgomery, in the book "Neurofeedback: The First 50 years" the process went as follows:</span></p>
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        <p><i>Since it was an around the clock procedure, we tag-teamed the patient, so as to use every minute of opportunity in the brief time we were on the scene. She would record the brainwaves, using her machine, over several of the 10-20 electrode sites, until the area of the brain with the most voltage in the beta frequency band of 15 - 18 Hz was located </i>[a
            bipolar placement with the anterior electrode as reference and the posterior electrode as the active]<i>. Many times it was behind the ear or further back. We would then place on e sensor over the place with the highest voltage and [another electrode] an inch or so toward the frontal lobe. We used two types of feedback: speakers on the clavicle bones to conduct the audio signal via bone vibration while the visual signal was a small green light he diameter of a dilated pupil that brightened with any increase in amplitude. WE began the feedback session by holding one of the patient's eyes open and pointing the "coma light" towards the open eye. The auditory signal was the bell sound that came from the speaker of the machine on the clavicles.&nbsp;</i></p>
        <p><i>One of us would watch the patient and the other would watch the EEG on the machine's screen. Margaret was usually loudly cheering the patient on and encouraging family members present to join in. The goal was to inhibit theta activity over the site being measured, thus moving the beta activity a bit closer to the frontal lobe.. When the brainwave suggested fatigue (usually in 3 - 5 minutes), the session would be terminated and one of us would monitor the brainwaves between the sessions. We were looking for an increase in activity that suggested the patient was ready for another brief feedback session. That interim period often provided us with the opportunity to note the changes in brainwave patterns due to activity in the patient's room or someone talking within the patient's earshot. I spent a lot of time making notes int he patient's hospital chart about those observations. The overall goal of the procedure we used was to more Beta activity to the frontal lobe. Margaret knew that one of the primary jobs of the frontal lobe is initiation. She knew that if enough beta activity was moved to the frontal lobe a small step at a time, that when the frontal lobe contained enough Beta activity it would initiate awakening from the coma. This procedure worked amazingly well!</i></p>
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    <p>It is not debated in the field of neurotherapy that Margaret was a pioneer and a visionary. She established the first neurofeedback practice in the US in 1976. The field lost Margaret in 2008, one year after the publication of her book, when she lost
        her health to Ischemic Bowel Disease.&nbsp;</p><br>
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