Increase the theta waves ensign!

Had a fabulous weekend with
my sister Kelly.She came for a visit and make my weekend awesome. John had to study the entire time so he really missed out on some fun stuff. We ventured to the Little Rock Museum of Discovery as part of our lifelong goal to visit a science center in every state. There we met Tammy the Owl at the live animal show and made great fools of ourselves. It's a little awkward being 16 years older than the entire audience and still geeking out about owls. We participated with great enthusiasm.
"Does anyone know the differences between birds and mammals?"
"Oh oh! Live birth!
"Lactation! Lactation!"
We did keep it to whispers as not to disturb the children...Ahem.
Kelly seriously freaked out on the brain model though. I think we spent a good 10 minutes identifying structures and function on a giant light up brain. I ranted a bit in the "Health" section on the old science they were displaying. Lies to the children! Update this data! 1993? Seriously?

I've chosen this article in honor of my fabulous (although pretentious) sister.

I want to remember this crazy weekend (especially the sushi) so, the best way to do this would be to line up my neuronal firings with my theta waves.

So, there are beta (Awake) and delta (Asleep) and pretty much every Greek letter of waves that your brain gives off at different intervals depending on the task. Theta waves are the oscillations that you get when doing or looking at something novel. You're neurons also fire impulses in an attempt to lay down a memory. Rutishauser et. al found that the number of impulses didn't effect how well a memory was formed but rather if the impulses lined up with the theta oscillations.

WHAt?
That's just really cool. I think I'll geek about that for a bit. Is this why we have stronger memories if we put things to music? Does that line up our impulses with a beat? Would studying with a metronome help? Probably not since a theta wave oscillates at 10 per second... That'd be a crazy tick. Is there a way to control theta patterns?

I know a lot of people are mapping brain waves and making music out of them. I also know there's a bit of pseudoscience about using music to control delta waves. What can one do to control their theta waves?

Gah. There's so much crazy going on! Theta waves and heart arrhythmias during sleep? Delta waves and schizophrenia?
I have to go to work.

Ps. We also played in the fountain at the park with all the little children. It was fun.
Here she is climbing the rock wall at the River Market