State of Mind as a Subjective Mental Sensation Results from Objective Brain Activity following Neurofeedback-eeg and Relaxation Trainings

The paper attempts to examine the relationships of the states of mind with brain activity with regards to reports and empiri cal studies available in the subject literature. Questions were asked about the processes that occur in the brain and the cognition to produce basic states of mind, which were termed: state of readiness attention (conscious attention), state of attention engagement (automated attention, unconscious attention) and alpha state (no attention, relax). 73 student athletes involved in swimming, fencing, track and field, taekwondo, and judo, took part in the experiment with five people representing each sport. They were 18 to 25 years of age and showed similar sports skill level (national level) and trained at the same club (5 to 7 years). Before and after 20 neurofeedback-EEG training sessions, all the subjects performed EEG recordings. Eighteen athletes were included in the experimental group, subjected for 7 months to relaxation training sessions. A twenty-week neurofeedback-EEG training course aimed at the reinforcement of the amplitude of the SMR and beta 1 bands while reducing the amplitude of the theta and beta 2 bands in athletes causes changes in brain activity at rest and, consequently, in the states of mind. The amplitude of the alpha band changed after relaxation training sessions. In the empirical studies described ones based on scientific achievements and focused on the problem of human mind, attempts were made to find correlations between subjective states of mind and objective brain activity.