Brain Advancement Center

Brain Advancement Center, LLC

Office Hours: Mon-Fri 9 AM – 5 PM

Clinician Hours: Mon-Fri 9 AM – 6 PM or by appointment

    Sat: By appointment only  Sun: Closed


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Neurofeedback


Change the Brain Directly 

What is neurofeedback and why is it powerful?

Your brain is where mind and body come together. So you can train your body to build stamina, strength, or flexibility, so you can train your brain. For thousands of years, people have used meditation and prayer to change the brain by training the mind. For the past 50 years, though, biofeedback technology has made a much faster and easier option possible: Change the mind by training the brain directly!

Are you looking for proven alternatives to things such as medication or invasive surgery? Neurofeedback is a well supported option for those looking for non-invasive and more holistic alternative approaches to treatment. At Brain Advancement Center, we like to push the boundaries of what is “normal” and “expected.” This is why we offer the best-in-class approach for neurofeedback and programming to our clients.  When making our decision, our client’s needs were our only priority. Brain Advancement Center utilizes a whole brain approach, based on symptoms…not pathology or diagnosis. Our unique system is made possible through Brain-Trainer©, which is a brain training software program emphasizing an individualized approach designed solely for each person and their brain, who is experiencing symptoms. The Brain-Trainer© system is designed by practitioners NOT researchers. It offers practical proven programs, which are research-based and strategies which are useful in reducing problematic symptoms for thousands of people. When you give your brain real-time information about its energy levels, you can teach it to calm down or speed up, to shift more smoothly, and become more efficient. These changes carry over into your daily life.


What Can I Change? 

Different types of neurofeedback training in different areas of the brain can help you in many ways.

  • Strengthen attention, focus, learning, memory, creativity, and intuition
  • Gain greater control of behavior, emotions, and racing thoughts
  • Brighten and stabilize mood and deal with the past traumatic experience
  • Improve sleep, appetite and other physical functions
  • Overcome chronic pain and fatigue condition
  • Rehabilitate head injuries, seizure activity, migraines, and irritable bowel
  • Improve your ability to stay in "the zone" and perform at your peak

There are two main neurofeedback technologies we recommend, HEG and QEEG. Either can be used alone, but training plans can also incorporate both methods.  The key to our success with this system is that the TQ7 automatically produces a customized Whole-Brain Training Plan (WBTP) based on brain patterns and highest rated symptoms for the specific client’s brain based on the assessment.  It defines 5 training sessions through which the client is cycled, much like circuit training at the gym.


Critical strengths of our system  include: .


  • Designed for training with a purpose is to evaluate the current patterns  present in the brain and move the brain to “peak” performance.

  • Avoids the concept of “normal.” It does not use databases or z-scores. 

  • Descriptive. This means that the brain is being compared to what research  has  shown to be true for peak performing brains.

  • Doesn’t look at the brain through hundreds of micro-measures. It looks at a macro picture of “stable activation patterns” that all brains demonstrate. Researchers have identified and published patterns that correlate with specific problem areas or symptom sets. The TQ7 is a tool to seek out and identify those patterns where they exist currently in the brain.

  • Avoids diagnostic categories. It uses a Client Report which includes ratings of many symptoms. When the client completes this, the trainer receives a report and a file that is automatically loaded into each client’s assessment and used in in the brain-pattern summary and training plan.


  • Integrates with the Brain-trainer© design package of 36 different training protocols for amplitude, peak frequency, symmetry, synchrony/coherence, deep-states, SMR, TAG synchrony and other specialty approaches. These offer feedback in a selection of music, game, video, imagery and other modalities.

  • Builds in expertise from dozens of research studies of the stable brain energy patterns that underlie the real-life habits of thought, mood, physical function, behavior and performance that most clients wish to change. This one assessment (in a matter of seconds) provides a summary of each client’s unique brain activity highlighting which brain patterns are present and the symptoms most likely related to those patterns. 



The Assessment 

While other clinics offer brain mapping assessments through a QEEG, Brain Advancement Center offers similar yet superior mapping through Brain Trainer’s TQ7. The TQ7 is the best way to maximize effective assessments, while minimizing negative responses. Brain Trainer’s TQ7 provides a full QEEG focused on practical questions. The TQ7 distinguishes between useful and problematic variances and client’s strengths to produce a Whole-Brain training plan and Client Pattern Summary within minutes. With less unnecessary data, less chance of negative response, means fewer processing delays and more reasonable fees.


Why is this important?



This system allows us to be more focused on critical training issues, more immediately, and more cost-effectively in a complete, integrated assessment. It means that we don’t perform the assessment and send it away for someone else to evaluate and interpret it. Instead, we perform the assessment and have answers within minutes of completing it. The purpose of the assessment is to identify problematic areas and determine the best course of treatment to help people make lasting changes in the areas of life where change is desired. This key distinction made the TQ7 brain mapping assessment the obvious choice for Brain Advancement Center clients. Brain training equipment picks up information from sensors (HEG headset or electrodes) placed on your scalp or forehead about how your brain is performing and sends this information to a computer.

The Training:



Your brain is where mind and body come together. Just as you can train your body to build stamina, strength or flexibility, so you can train your brain. For thousands of years, people have used meditation and prayer to change the brain by training the mind. For the past 50 years, though, biofeedback technology has made a much faster and easier option possible: Change the mind by training the brain directly!

When you give your brain real-time information about its energy levels, you can teach it to calm down or speed up, to shift more smoothly and become more efficient. These changes carry over into your daily life. A neurofeedback training program or biofeedback therapy can make this happen.

Each brain develops what we could call stable activation patterns–basically energy habits. Using the right hemisphere to do left hemisphere tasks, establishing very sensitive warning systems, locking functions together instead of letting them flow, are examples of these.  We believe that these energy strategies were adopted by the brain at some time of high stress often that went on for some time.  They were survival strategies, and they worked.  But because any chaotic energy system like the electrical brain tends to stabilize around specific patterns, the brain continues to use those strategies long after the need for them has passed and even if they are extremely counter-productive.


Brain training isn’t psychology. It works with spiritual, physical, mental and emotional issues. It isn’t about fixing mental disorders but about moving toward greater flexibility and range for the brain. Brain training is about giving the brain greater control with better and more functional energy habits. Which effectively leads to changes in function and behavior.


Feedback is like a mirror for the brain. One way we learn to control ourselves is by using mirrors. We do something and the feedback shows us HOW well we did it.  It seems kind of simple, but the reality is that the human brain learns most everything from mirrors. It responds to sensory inputs by taking action, then it sees what happens. Even if we don’t LIKE what we see in the mirror, we can still learn from it. Brain training software is told what specific changes you want to make in your brain's behavior. It sets targets and provides you with biofeedback, such as music or video or games, that start and stop depending on whether or not your brain is hitting its targets. Brain Training doesn't teach tricks or techniques.

Your brain changes itself. You don't have to "think about" it or "try". Your brain gets the feedback when you pay attention to it and moves in the desired direction. Here at Brain Advancement Center, we offer you Brain-Trainer neuro feedback to get the results you want.


There is a great deal of experience and evidence in published studies that “psychological” problems can indeed be resolved both faster and more permanently by changing the activation patterns in the brain and body. The client does not have to talk about or “process” or remember traumas. Instead, by shifting the way the brain produces and distributes energy (which the client does themselves), problems such as anxiety, depression, addictions, obsessions/compulsions, inattention, poor emotional regulation and many others, simply go away. For most clients, this is much more desirable than digging back through old experiences and feelings to try to find the “source” of a negative habit pattern–still with no assurance that it will change! That is not to say that counseling and coaching are not important parts of helping clients (and support system) adjust to the change. They can work together very effectively. The goal of brain training is not to make us all fall within specific standards, rather, it is to give each individual a tool to allow them to increase their range of options and provide additional ways to feel more fully like themselves.



Almost any negative symptom can be helped with brain training (bio/neurofeedback). The following is a list of just a few things we have treated successfully with our Brain-Trainer©_System:

·        Chronic Pain

·        Irritable Bowel Syndrome

·        Memory Issues

·        Traumatic Brain Injuries

·        Post-Concussion Syndrome

·        Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

·        Depression

·        Anxiety

·        Sleep Issues

·        Autism

·        Coordination

·        Dementia

·        Body Dysmorphia

·        Eating Disorders

·        Dyslexia

·        Epilepsy

·        Fibromyalgia

·        Migraines

·        OCD

·        Stroke

·        Substance Use/Abuse

·        Vertigo

·        Vision Issues

·        Academic Performance 


Brain Training Technologies 

  • HEG (HEMO-Encephalography)

    The PFC (prefrontal cortex), the brain's executive center lying behind the forehead, controls attention and blocks distractions. It integrates a constant flow of sensory, emotional, and memory material and decides what it means and what to do about it.


    It screens outgoing physical, verbal, and emotional impulses. It regulates mood. It's a key to working memory. It's the center for motivation, planning, and organizing.


    HEG measures changes in levels of metabolic activity in the PFC. As HEG readings rise during a session, the PFC is activating, increasing blood supply, and blood oxygen levels.

    The busiest neurons in the brain have more of what they need to work (oxygen and glucose). As the distribution system improves, the trainee is better able to control executive functions for longer periods.


    We know that if you work out and improve aerobic function in your cardiopulmonary system, that doesn't mean you HAVE to race around all the time. Similarly, with HEG training, you improve PFC function for longer periods, but you can still sit quietly and relax when you want. HEG requires no assessment. Training time is an hour or two a week. It's fast and easy to learn.


  • EEG (ELECTRO-Encephalography) Neurofeedback

    Like your heart, your brain operates with rhythmic pulses of electricity. Each level of energy has its own strengths and weaknesses.


    Low Pulses (Creative/Intuitive)—you are thinking or dreaming inside your head, out of contact with your environment, using images rather than words, and tending to leap to answers rather than going through steps. Being stuck here, you may have attention or learning problems or be depressed.


    Fast Pulses (Logical/Rational)—processing with words and using steps and sequences, you may be internally or externally focused. Being stuck here, you may be obsessive, compulsive, addictive, or anxious.


    Middle Speeds (Zone states)—these are pure awareness states. They include peak states in sports or performance, the ability to do things in auto-pilot, mental stillness, physical relaxation, and presence at the moment. Being stuck here, you may tend to drift through tasks and appear unmotivated.


    Ideally, we want our brains to be able to shift from slow to fast states smoothly and easily and stay in each as long as desired. Most of us develop energy "habits" and get stuck at one particular speed. We live with its strengths and limitations.


    EEG measures electrical patterns in the brain and can guide it into more functional patterns. By changing patterns and connectivity, EEG can calm an overly excited brain, activate a lazy one, improve communication within it, and release subconscious material. It can train over the entire head and can train multiple locations at the same time.

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