Listen to a conversation in a Physiology seminar. The professor and the students are discussing Biofeedback P: The focus o f our conversation today is 1 . Basically it's the techni que in which patients are able to 2 their own body function s . What it does is to monitor 3 changes in a patient that he or she would necessarily be 4 of . Generally speaking, these changes are some what negative in nature like a raised heart beat or muscle tension and are most often induce d by stress. And once patients become aware of the changes, th e y can , um...learn to control them. It's a relatively new 5 , um... ma de possible by technology. M: But what the technology have to do with this? Is n ’ t it obvious when someone is tense or has a rapid heart beat? P: Well, some changes are very 6 and happen faster than the human can monitor alone. M: So how is someone made aware of these physiological changes? P: Well, the patient is 7 up to a machine, and it’ ll emit either a beep or a flashing light in response to...well like I said : muscle tension or rapid heart beat. And the beep or whatever signal s the patient. W: Would you say this is a kind of psychological conditioning? That i s you tr y to change a person’ s behavior by negative 8 . So you are forced to relax because you are afraid the machine would fee d back you? P: Um... I know you are certainly not far off, but your example isn't quite right. I think the goal is to become more aware of what happen s to your body when 9 to stress. If you are aware of it, you’ ll have a great er degree to control o ver it, and theoretically you can minimize it. And the result is similar, you learn at least in the case of stress 10 to control tension in your body. W: Is biofeedback used only for stress disorders? P: No, it has lots of other applications. But right now, stress is what most successfully treat. Interestingly, biofeedback is over weighed when i t first came out in 1960. People claim that it could be use d to control all kinds of things, like abnormally high blood pressure, severe hard condition what have you, uh ... that didn't turn out exactly to be true. M: Do you think biofeedback will ever be used to treat other conditions thus successfully as has stress? P: Good question. Now I’ ve heard that some researchers are looking into the possibility that it might someday be used to help certain paralyzed people recover to use their arms or legs, but...that's quite a way off.