SPECIAL ISSUE: In Honor of Maurice Barry Sterman

It is a great privilege to have been asked to write a piece to honor the work and career of Maurice Barry Sterman, PhD. I have known Barry since the early 1970s, when he published his initial work treating a case of severe seizures utilizing sensorimotor rhythm operant conditioning (SMR) (Sterman & Friar, 1972). Sterman's work began in the late 1960s when he showed that training SMR activity was possible by utilizing the principles of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning had been established as a foundational methodology in experimental psychology since the early work of Thorndike (1898) and later B. F. Skinner (1938). In his research in the 1960s, Sterman showed that it was possible to operantly condition cats to increase SMR (Wyrwicka & Sterman, 1968). He even demonstrated that if they were first trained to increase SMR activity and then exposed to monomethylhydrazine (a toxic rocket propellant), a strong convulsant, SMR training either decreased or inhibited strong tonic-clonic seizures (grand mal as they were known colloquially; Sterman, 1976).

I became very interested in extending Barry Sterman's research and his findings in my laboratory at the University of Tennessee, where we replicated his findings in people with epilepsy but extended this work to the treatment of hyperkinetic disorder of childhood, as it was called then (Lubar & Shouse, 1977; Shouse & Lubar, 1978). Today this disorder is referred to as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). My graduate student Margaret Shouse based her dissertation on SMR training for children with ADHD. Barry Sterman was interested in her work and made it possible for her to join his group at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital. Eventually, she obtained a faculty position at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). I spent 9 months in Barry Sterman's laboratory and at UCLA between December 1975 and August 1976 on a sabbatical supported by the National Science Foundation. This allowed me to see firsthand how his group was training patients with epileptic seizures to bring the seizures under control. The sabbatical also allowed me to extend work published with Margaret Shouse and others in my laboratory for helping people with epilepsy and severe seizure disorders obtain better control (Lubar & Shouse, 1976).

Utilizing electrophysiological techniques in cats, Sterman traced the anatomy between the thalamus and the sensorimotor cortex responsible for the modulation of SMR. Since those early studies, the SMR circuit has been extended all the way to the cerebellum, which helps to modulate the thalamus and in turn modulates the output of the sensorimotor cortex. Sterman's work laid the basis for the widespread employment of SMR training for many disorders, including tic disorders, Tourette syndrome, and the hyperkinetic component of attention deficit disorder. Today SMR training is still utilized effectively for helping patients with epileptic seizures, where there is a motor component such as tonic-clonic, myoclonic, atonic, and others. Sterman's initial research and application has been extended even further; we can now train portions of the cerebellum and the red nucleus, which are all part of the complete SMR circuit utilizing low-resolution electromagnetic tomographic analysis neurofeedback.

Sterman has made many contributions in the area of sleep research and had a sleep laboratory in addition to his work on epilepsy. Barry published more than 150 papers in high-impact journals as well as books and book chapters. He has presented symposia, panels, and research addresses worldwide. I remember many years ago, we were together at the Biofeedback Foundation of Europe meeting in Amsterdam; a number of years later at a large meeting outside of Mexico City; and meetings in Tübingen, Germany; Tokyo, Japan; and Australia. Barry played a very significant role in the development of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB), where he has done a great deal to establish the importance of solid research as a backbone for the development of neurofeedback (now sometimes referred to as neurotherapy).

On a more personal note, I fondly remember those wonderful 9 months I spent with Barry, his wife Lorraine, my wife Judith, and my two children, who were very young when I was on sabbatical in Los Angeles in 1975–1976. One particularly wonderful experience was accompanying Barry, Lorraine, and Judith on his beautiful yacht to his place on Catalina Island. We spent several days together snorkeling, walking the beautiful streets of the main town of Avalon, and partaking of the fine cuisine. I have had a couple of opportunities to visit Barry and Lorraine in Los Angeles since then. Barry and I both loved fishing, and I remember fishing with him in California and Key West, Florida and in Vancouver, British Columbia with Paul Swingle.

I think about Barry very often and even spoke with him in the last year and met with him and Lorraine at the 50th anniversary of AABP. I am aware of and sorry for his health situation, but I just want him to know that regardless of what happens, he will be remembered as a giant in our field, and his work will continue to be cited for many decades.