High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Audio-visual entrainment (AVE), a subset of brainwave entrainment, uses flashes of lights and pulses of tones to guide the brain into various states of brainwave activity. AVE devices are often termed light and sound machines or mind machines. Altering brainwave activity is believed to aid in the treatment of psychological and physiological disorders.All of our senses (except smell) access the brain's cerebral cortex via the thalamus, and because the thalamus is highly innervated with the cortex, sensory stimulation can easily influence cortical activity. In order to affect brain (neuronal) activity, sensory stimulation must be within the frequency range of roughly 0.5 to 25 hertz (Hz). Touch, photic and auditory stimulation are capable of affecting brain wave activity. A large area of skin must be stimulated to affect brainwaves, which leaves both auditory and photic stimulation as the most effective and easiest means of affecting brain activity. Therefore, mind machines are typically in the form of light and sound devices.