The Brain Philharmonie

The Brain Musicians

I received a phone call that my son was taken to hospital from the nursery. I rushed to the hospital. A one-hour drive felt like ages. A lot happened during the hour. I was taken to a small room where my son was sitting with his mum. He looked dazed – dozens of wires were sticking out of his head. The doctor was staring at a monitor. I could see a lot of wavy lines on the screen. I was puzzled. I thought my son was non-responsive in the nursery – what is the doctor doing with him? I waited quietly. The doctor eventually switched off the machine, and the nurse began to remove the wires. The doctor turned towards us, smiled, and said, “Everything is normal. He did not have a seizure”. I was overly inquisitive and asked him, “How did you know he did not have a seizure?”.  He smiled and enigmatically uttered, “We are looking for cacophonies in the brain symphony!”. This triggered my expedition to the universe of the brain. The billions of neurons talk to their neighbours by firing electrical signals, generating changes in minute voltages. This creates a range of electrical brain waves that rhythmically fire. Local groups of neurons maintaining a specific task follow the same rhythms. The rhythms in different brain areas then create harmonic rhythms and ever-changing melodies to maintain a group of tasks necessary for our day-to-day survival. The brain symphony orchestra plays seamlessly for healthy cognition, emotion, and behaviour. If some rhythms are out of tune, we can pick these cacophonies by measuring the brain waves. For example, when we sleep, our brainwaves are at their slowest – around 4 cycles per second (Delta: .0-4Hz). Deep relaxation and reflection generate slightly faster waves (Theta: 4-8Hz). Passively paying attention to something yet being relaxed generates an even faster wave (Alpha: 8-12Hz). When one is anxious or actively monitoring one’s surroundings, the frequency of the brainwaves increases even more (Beta: 12-35Hz). Engaging in demanding cognitive tasks generates the fastest wave (Gamma: 35Hz). For example, when we try to solve a complex mathematical problem, the Gamma wave becomes active, especially in the problem-solving part of the brain. It is fascinating the way our brain plays this philharmonie (Galinsky & Frank, 2023).

The Conductors

This philharmonic orchestra modulates its melodies on demand based on internal and external senses. The senses of comfort and discomfort from our touch, internal and external pressures in our body, the smell, seeing something pleasant or threatening, hearing something soothing or a startling scream, and eating a delicious meal or swallowing a bitter pill send messages to the brain through our spinal cord and brain stem to emotional areas of the brain and eventually to the thinking and sense-making regions of the brain. This enables the melodies to be modulated for smooth information processing and subsequent efficient responses.

Unlike the real-life orchestra, however, there is no single conductor for our brainwaves. The paradox is that different brain regions seamlessly and instantly communicate with each other and our body to generate this beautiful philharmonie. We have a sense of control and autonomy, but it seems it is an illusion — are we slaves of our brains? What happens when there is a cacophony? Can we actively take control of the philharmonie and become the conductor?

We now know that we can give our breath the role of conductor. Deep and slow breathing orchestrate our internal bodily messages and, in turn, conduct the whole brain philharmonie. Deep and slow breathing through our nostrils stimulates our smell-sensing area of the brain, which has a shortcut to our thinking and sense-making regions. During breathing, the muscles in our chest talk to a special region of the brain called the locus coeruleus (LC) in the brain stem, which regulates hormones to modulate the beat in the brain philharmonie. The LC talks to the preBötzinger Complex nucleus (Yackle et al., 2017), which regulates natural breathing and stimulates the heart’s natural pacemaker. The heart then beats in sync with the deep and slow breathing. The master conductor, the breath, is now in control of the brain philharmonie. If we allow the breath to take on this role, we can regain control of the brain philharmonie.  Any cacophony will be taken care of by the master conductor. The cacophonies indicate stress, anxiety, depression, brain fog, and even the cravings associated with alcohol and substance use.

Conducting the Conductors

Neurofeedback is used as an intervention to help people regain control of the brain philharmonie. By actively trying to relax and be calm, one can change the brain waves to reduce the cacophony.  For instance, Alpha-Theta wave neurofeedback enhances the Alpha and Theta waves in the brain’s visual region. Individuals who are addicted to alcohol can reduce the specific alcohol addiction-related cacophony by actively trying to relax and increase the wave bandwidths. The calmer the mind, the more variable our heartbeats are. The specific rate of inhalation and exhalation while monitoring and increasing the heart rate variability (HRV) leads to improved melodies in the brain’s orchestra (Zaccaro A. et al., 2018). Also, the studies showed that there are very specific cacophonies for methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and alcoholism (Sokhadze at el., 2008). Bringing the harmony back helps with recovery and reduces the probability of relapse.

Alternatively, biofeedback training by slow and deep breathing can achieve a similar and sometimes stronger effect because the multiple internal sensations are synchronised by slow and deep breathing. Slow and deep breathing also conducts the rhythm of the heartbeats. It changes from monotonous repeated beats to exciting improvisation by varying the rhythm of heartbeats). The clients are trained to increase their HRV by biofeedback intervention. Let`s play a beautiful Brain philharmonie conducted by our breathing on the path to healing from addiction.

References

Galinsky, V.L. & Frank, L.R. (2023). Critically synchronized brain waves form an effective, robust, and flexible basis for human memory and learning. Scientific Reports, 13(4343).

Sokhadze, T. et at. (2008). EEG Biofeedback as a treatment for substance use disorders: review, rating of efficacy, and recommendations for further research, Applied Psychophysiological Biofeedback, 31(1), 1-28.

Quintana, D.S. (2012). Heart rate variability is associated with emotion recognition: Direct evidence for a relationship between the autonomic nervous system and social cognition. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 86 (2012), 168-172.

Yackle, K. et al. (2017). Breathing control center neurons that promote arousal in mice. Science, 355(6332),1411-1415.

Zaccaro, A. et al. (2018). How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing, Frontiers of Human Neurosciences, 12(353).