Brain Map
The brain tells us everything.
The brain is a highly complex organ made up of billions of cells called neurons. Neurons send and receive messages to and from all parts of your body. These messages are electrical impulses that create brain waves. Brain mapping evaluates your brain-waves and identifies opportunities to improve communication within and between various regions of the brain. The brain map captures a window of brain activity, analyzes the data, and creates a visual representation for each lobe of the brain and each specific brain wave (i.e., beta, alpha, theta, and delta).
Beta Band
An indicator of cortical arousal and increases during active concentration
Alpha band
Involved in motor functions and cognitive functioning
Theta band
Involved in memory encoding and retrieval and increases during drowsiness
Delta band
Predominates during deep sleep
A brain map is a diagnostic tool for people with brain-based conditions. We use brain mapping to optimize brain health. In essence, a brain mapprovides a window into brain functioning to identify the source of dysregulation in your brain. We use this information to establish treatment protocols to improve your life quality often without relying on drugs. Obtaining a brain map to enhance brain health is analogous to getting a bacterial culture to determine which antibiotic best treats an infection.
A brain map detects subtle deviations in brain-wave forms. Sometimes, symptoms are caused by underactive brain areas, showing excessive slow brain waves that impair function. Other times, symptoms are caused by overstimulated brain areas, showing too many fast brain waves. Either abnormality is disruptive to optimal functioning and causes impairment.
A brain map can also demonstrate if brain networks are correctly functioning. Networks of neurons regulate mood, behavior, attention, sleep, and learning. These different networks communicate with each other so the brain can optimally perform complex tasks. The process is analogous to an orchestra with many musicians who need to communicate and coordinate to play their musical instruments in harmony and collectively make beautiful music. The brain is no different.
Balance bestows harmony within and with those whose lives we touch. It is balance that we seek. Balance in form and function. Balance in the face bestows beauty, breath, and function. There is a hidden order to the face that exemplifies the importance of proportions.
Horizontal Thirds of the Face
The face is divisible into horizontal thirds. Each third should ideally be one-third of the overall face height. Horizontal symmetry denotes an attractive, functional, and proportional face, and it involves specific rules:
The Upper Third: This portion begins at the hairline and ends at the eyebrows.
The Middle Third: This section includes the eyebrows down to the bottom of the nose.
The Lower Third: This part extends from the bottom of the nose to the lowest part of the chin and should ideally be one-third of the overall face height. We can further subdivide the facial lower third into:
The Upper One-Third: This part extends from bottom of the nose to the lip junction
The Lower Two-Thirds: This part extends from the lip junction to the lowest part of the chin.
Vertical Fifths of the Face
Another essential measurement is the vertical fifths of the face.
The face is divided into fifths, each fifth roughly the width of one eye.
The ideal nasal width, which corresponds to the middle fifth of the face, is equal to the eye width.
Azizzadeh B, Murphy MR, Johnson CM. Master Techniques in Facial Rejuvenation. WB Saunders Company; 2006
Making the invisible, visible.
Just as there is a hidden order to the face, there is a hidden order to the brain. It is balance that we seek. A balanced brain allows us to remain calm, happy, focused, steady, and sharp. An imbalanced brain does the opposite, making us feel anxious, sad, inattentive, shaky, and forgetful. Worse, an imbalanced brain is often balanced by an imbalanced lifestyle, and alcohol, marijuana, sleeping pills, psychiatric medications, rage, withdrawal, sleepiness, and fatigue may ensue.
At Sleep and Brain, we reveal the hidden order of the brain with a brain map. When balance is lost, we institute remedies to restore order to the disorder. We aim to restore the balance that has been elusively out of reach until now.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does brain mapping work?
Sensors are placed on the surface of the head and record the underlying brain waves. Brain mapping is non-invasive and painless. Much like a thermometer, which records your temperature but does not affect your temperature, the brain map records the brain's electrical activity for analysis without affecting the brain. The brain map identifies dysregulated brain areas requiring attention.
Like laboratory tests, the brain map detects the specific brain waves (i.e., beta, alpha, theta, and delta) of each brain lobe. For instance, a thyroid blood test will reveal if your thyroid hormone levels are within the normal range, low, or high compared to a population of people with normal thyroid functioning. Similarly, the brain map will show if your brain activity is within normal limits or dysregulated.
Brain mapping is also comparable to a physician performing an electrocardiogram for chest pain to determine its cause. We use the brain map to determine the underlying cause of your symptoms. When a patient has chest pain, the physician will evaluate the heart. When you come to Saratoga Sleep and Brain exhibiting signs of sleep, behavioral, or cognitive dysfunction, we assess the brain.
Functional connections between brain regions are critical for optimal brain functioning. The brain map measures coherence between different regions, which indicates the normalcy of communications between brain regions; in other words, it measures how well the brain's different areas communicate to perform complex tasks. For example, there needs to be adequate coherence connectivity between the attention, auditory processing, and visual processing networks in the brain to be a good reader with proper comprehension.
How is a brain map used in treatment?
The brain map is like a fingerprint of the brain. We individualize your treatment to improve the specific dysregulation linked to your symptoms. For example, if you have problems with sustaining concentration on non-preferred tasks and the "attention network" on the brain map shows abnormalities, we will target treatment to the disrupted connections in the "attention network" areas. We would also direct treatment to improve the connections between the attentional network and other networks required for optimal brain functioning and concentration. Or suppose your brain's frontal region shows excessive slow brain waves, and you have attentional difficulties. In that case, we direct treatment to regulate the frontal lobe to sustain concentration. As another example, the right temporal region governs emotion. If it is malfunctioning, you may have difficulty with emotional regulation or low frustration tolerance. Again, we can target treatment to strengthen this region to improve emotional regulation.
How does brain map-guided treatment improve life quality?
Not everyone has the neurophysical capacity to meet the everyday demands in life adequately. This explains why you sleep poorly, become emotionally overwhelmed, or are unmotivated to complete non-preferred tasks. It is frustrating for you and equally frustrating for an outside observer who doesn't understand your disrupted neurophysical capacity limits to self-regulate.
Saratoga Sleep and Brain's brain map-guided treatment protocols enable you to strengthen connections in your brain, resulting in improved efficiency and speed of information processing both within and between regions of the brain. Medications, while useful, do not have this level of treatment specificity. You will have a different life experience when your brain works harmoniously versus in dysregulation. Without a brain map, you cannot know if your symptoms are neurologically or psychologically based. If neurological, the brain map pinpoints which brain-wave patterns are abnormal and where the abnormality exists. We develop individualized treatment protocols based on scientific evidence.
