Brain Scan Changes During 4 Weeks of Treatment for Generalized Anxiety Disorder

The following is excerpted from Energy Psychology Interactive:

2 Sessions Combining Manual Acupoint Stimulation and Image Activation with a patient who was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

The images are digitized EEG brain scans. The colors represent the ratio of brain frequencies (alpha, beta, and theta waves) and sub-frequencies within given areas of the brain.

Image 1 depicts a normal ratio of wave frequencies according to databases. Image 2 is a scan at the outset of treatment of a patient diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).The profile is typical for patients diagnosed with GAD. Images 3 through 5 are taken over the course of 12 sessions during a 4-week period using the stimulation of acupoints (while anxiety-provoking imagery was activated) as the treatment. A decrease in the intensity and frequency of GAD symptoms correlated with shifts toward normal levels of wave frequency ratios in the cortex. The pattern shown in these images was typical for GAD patients in the South American study who responded positively to the stimulation of acupoints. These images were provided to Energy Psychology Interactive by Joaquín Andrade.

Discussion

As the wave frequencies shifted toward normal levels (from red to blue) in the central and front areas of the brain, the symptoms of anxiety decreased in both their intensity and their frequency. Similar sequences of images and symptom reduction were also typical of other patients with generalized anxiety disorder who received energy-based treatments.

Patients who were successfully treated with what has been the standard therapy for generalized anxiety disorder (Cognitive Behavior Therapy, combined with medication as needed), showed a similar progression in their brain scans during the pilot study in South America discussed below. But it took more sessions to achieve the improvements. And more importantly, on one-year follow-up, the brain wave ratios following the Cognitive Behavior Therapy protocol were more likely to have returned to their pre-treatment levels than they were for the patients who received the energy treatments.

An interesting tangent from this study was in the comparison between patients whose primary treatment was anti-anxiety medication and patients whose primary treatment involved stimulating energy points while holding anxiety-provoking images. Both groups enjoyed a reduction of symptoms. But the brain scans for the medication group did not show noticeable changes in the wave patterns, even though the symptoms of anxiety were reduced while the drug was being taken. This suggests that the medication was suppressing the symptoms without addressing the underlying wave frequency imbalances.

An Hypothesis

Early impressions from brain imaging studies, such as the study from which the above images are derived, support the following hypothesis:

Stimulating specific electrically inductive points on the skin while simultaneously activating an anxiety-provoking image changes the neurological connections to the amygdala and other brain structures in a manner that reduces the anxious response to that image.

This hypothesis is also supported by three empirically demonstrated principles (citations can be found in Energy Psychology Interactive):

1. Bringing a troubling image or memory to mind makes it temporarily responsive to interventions that alter the stress-activating circuitry in the amygdala and other brain structures (neural plasticity, a la Joseph LeDoux).
   
2. A study from Harvard Medical School showed that stimulating specific acupoints can send signals that deactivate areas of the brain that are involved with the experience of fear and pain.
   
3. Brain wave patterns that are markers of generalized anxiety and other mental disorders have been identified, and as you have seen, at least one early study suggests that stimulating acupoints while bringing anxiety-provoking images to mind changes these brain wave patterns.

These principles work in concert so that stimulating certain electrically inductive points while an anxiety-evoking image has been activated sends signals that normalize the affected wave patterns, as illustrated in the above brain scans.

Click here for Andrades and Feinstein’s full report

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