Neurofeedback: Conditions & Research
How much research is there on Neurofeedback?
Neurofeedback has been around for decades. To date there are thousands of studies, with more being published every day.
Below you’ll find information on neurofeedback for anxiety, depression, stress/ptsd, and brain injury with relevant studies:
Research on Anxiety
Anxiety sufferers are often overwhelmed, exhausted, and stressed out. Some can’t concentrate due to their intense internal focus. Others obsess about specific things. Anxiety is easily detected if someone appears outwardly nervous. At other times, anxious people can appear calm but their brain seems to never quiet down. They can’t stop thinking. The constant internal chatter can get so bad that it interrupts their sleeping and steals their quality of life. They don’t live in the present, they constantly worry about the future or live in the past. Helping people learn to calm or quiet themselves is by far the best and most effective solution for anxiety. Learning to decrease anxiety gives sufferers hope as they take control of their lives. Biofeedback and EEG neurofeedback are two of the quickest and fastest ways to teach people to learn to help themselves, and it’s easy to learn. These technologies have been used for many years with solid, proven results. It’s true, one can learn how to decrease anxiety and remain calmer with neurofeedback.
Effects of a Single Session of SMR Neurofeedback Training on Anxiety and Cortisol Levels
Marien Gadea, Marta Aliño, Vanesa Hidalgo, Raul Espert, Alicia Salvador from National Library of Medicine (2020)
D Scheinost, T Stoica, J Saksa, X Papademetris, RT Constable, C Pittenger and M Hampson From Translational Psychiatry (2013)
Research on Depression
Feeling down or depressed from time to time happens to most people. Usually such feelings pass, and a person can improve his or her mood naturally. However, some people cannot break out of a depressed state over an extended period of time. In those cases, a person is considered to have clinical depression. However, there is much research that shows that depression is neurological, not psychological. Certain brain patterns are frequently linked to depression. Therefore, training the brain through neurofeedback has a powerful ability to treat depression. With neurofeedback training, the brain practices a healthy pattern of mood regulation. Sometimes people with depression notice improvement after only a few sessions. However, for the brain to fully learn, more training is required. In time, the brain learns to regulate mood on its own.
Real-Time Self-Regulation of Emotion Networks in Patients with Depression [PDF]
David E. J. Linden, Isabelle Habes, Stephen J. Johnston, Stefanie Linden, Ranjit Tatineni, Leena Subramanian, Bettina Sorger, David Healy, Rainer Goebel
Research on Stress/PTSD
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a serious type of anxiety caused by an extremely stressful event or series of events. People who suffer from PTSD are looking for a method to treat their symptoms, and unfortunately, many people experience only limited benefit after trying various therapies and medication. Neurofeedback trains the brain to produce a calm state as well as regulate stress response. In addition, the specific areas of the brain affected by PTSD can be targeted. Frequently, the first sign of improvement is that a client sleeps better. Then other symptoms begin to improve. After sufficient training, someone with PTSD can maintain a calm state on his or her own. When a person has reached this stable state, neurofeedback treatments can be decreased until no further training is necessary.
The long-term costs of traumatic stress: intertwined physical and psychological consequences [PDF]
Alexander C. McFarlane
Research on Brain Injury
With a traumatic brain injury (TBI), the brain itself needs to be targeted. With neurofeedback, the brain is exercised. The specific areas of the brain affected by the TBI are targeted during neurofeedback therapy. Often in the case of TBI, a neurofeedback practitioner will utilize a qEEG brain map to determine which areas should be targeted. A variety of symptoms can be improved through neurofeedback training, such as speech, movement, regulating moods, controlling behavior, and reducing headaches. Neurofeedback works because the brain regulates each of those issues. For people recovering from TBI, neurofeedback training can be particularly helpful in improving speech. During neurofeedback training, the specific areas of the brain related to speech can be targeted. In this way, the areas associated with speech can be strengthened and improved. In fact, some neuropsychologists believe that neurofeedback is actually rehabilitating the damaged speech areas of the brain rather than just dealing with compensation.
Maria Pachalska, Małgorzata Łukowicz, Juri D. Kropotov, Izabela Herman-Sucharska, Jan Talar The Medical Science Monitor, 2011