What is it about?
This article links a fundamental cybernetic concept (the TOTE of Miller, Galanter & Pribram) to the physiology in the brain that produces it and then uses the concept to explain how people can perform EEG biofeedback efficaciously.
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Why is it important?
It's the first theoretical article that uses active cybernetic concepts in the explanation of an obvious cybernetic, namely biofeedback.
Perspectives
I wrestled with the problem of how EEG biofeedback could actually work for 20 years. The critical insight came with the reading of Buszaki's "Rhythms of the Brain" in which he lays out the physiology of the TOTE. The second critical insight was to put attractors, specifically Buszaki's cortical meta-stability, into the Test (T) portion of the TOTE. Voila... the brain is "in charge" of "tuning" itself because it is "intrinsically motivated" to do so. All it lacks is feedback on its own activity patterns, which the EEG biofeedback supplies. I find the concepts elegantly satisfying.
Kip Patterson
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A cybernetic theory for EEG biofeedback, Kybernetes, April 2017, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/k-11-2016-0339.
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