A breakthrough Canadian study has
found that training of a well-known brainwave in humans can be used to restore
brain function in mental disorders.
Scientists say the technique
allows training of the brain’s alpha rhythm, enhancing the brain network
responsible for cognitive-control. Researchers at the Western University and
the Lawson Health Research Institute discovered that functional changes within
a key brain network occur directly after a 30-minute session of noninvasive,
neural-based training.
Experts have long believed that
dysfunction of this cognitive-control network is implicated in a range of brain
disorders including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. During neurofeedback, users learn to control their own brain activity
with the help of a brain-computer interface. In the simplest case, this consists
of a computer that records brainwaves through surface sensors on the scalp,
known as an EEG (electroencephalogram). The system is then able to process and
simultaneously represent a user’s real-time brain activity, displayed from
moment-to-moment during a training game on a computer.
This setup is known as a
neurofeedback loop, because information of brain activity is continually
fed-back to a user reflecting their level of control. The real-time feedback
helps users to reproduce distinct normal brain states and promises to be an
innovative way to foster brain changes without adverse effects.
Researchers say a remodeling of
the brain to a normal state is possible because of neuroplasticity, a natural
property of the brain that enables it to reorganize after continual training. The
new findings help to address a long-standing issue in the field: whether
neurofeedback training can trigger any brain changes at all? “The effects we
observed were durable enough to be detected with functional MRI up to 30 minutes
after a session of neurofeedback which allowed us to compare brain and
behavioral measures more closely in time,” says Tomas Ros, PhD, lead author of
the study. “We were excited to find that increased metabolic coupling within a
key cognitive network was reflected in the individual level of brainwave change
provoked by neurofeedback.
The same measures were found to
be tightly correlated with reductions in mind-wandering during an attention
task. “Amazingly, this would imply that the brain’s function may be entrained
in a direction that is more attentive and quiet. In other words, our findings
speak for the exquisite functional plasticity of the adult brain, whose past
activity of little more than 30 minutes ago can condition its future state of
processing. This has already been hinted at in meditation research, but we
arrived at a direct and explicit demonstration by harnessing a brain-computer
interface.”
Senior author Dr. Ruth Lanius
adds: “Compared to the lack of significant findings in the control group that
received training with false feedback, our findings are unambiguously
supportive of a direct and plastic impact of neurofeedback on a central
cognitive-control network, suggesting a promising basis for its use to treat
cognitive disorders. “We hope that our observations will stimulate more
research by the science community in order to fully evaluate EEG neurofeedback
as a viable and potentially revolutionary approach for the treatment of brain
disorders. “We are very excited by this promise and anticipate a host of new
studies in this direction, particularly for cognitive disorders. Our current
work has now moved into the clinical domain to examine whether patients with
post-traumatic stress disorder may benefit from this advance.”
Psych Central
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