ADHD therapies Better under control by neurofeedback

A team of scientists has now shown that impulsive behavior of ADHD patients can be reduced by theta-beta neurofeedback. This shows for the first time that neurofeedback shows not only effects at behavioral level, but also at neurophysiological level.

Neurofeedback is a direct feedback of your own brain activity on the computer screen. Among other things, the children should move a car on the computer screen and try to win against the computer. In this way it is possible that the view of one's own thoughts is trained and the patient learns to control himself.

In the course of a study, neurofeedback has proven to be very helpful in ADHD. Image: Dan Race - fotolia

Nineteen children with ADHD were included in the study and neurofeedback was performed at each of the sixteen sessions. The aim and the challenge was that patients learn to regulate certain brain waves in such a way that the concentration can be increased or better controlled. In order to investigate whether this therapeutic approach actually brings the desired effects, a before-after comparison was made. The neurofeedback patients completed a reaction task before and after the eight-week therapy, while at the same time the brain activity in the EEG was measured. Here the patients had to press a button on a "push pulse".

If instead a "stop signal" appeared, the answer had to be held back. This can be used to measure how well the children can control their behavior according to the external stimuli.

After the neurofeedback, the small patients had better control than the control group, whose self-control was not trained.

Overall, the study authors observed that in addition to the important effects of neurofeedback on the impulsive behaviors of children, there were also concrete changes in brain activity. The study can be found here.

From this, the conclusion can be drawn: a specially used neurofeedback process leads to changes in very specific brain areas. The typical impulsive behaviors are significantly reduced at the behavioral and neuronal levels. This shows that neurofeedback not only acts superficially, but actually leads to a change in the brain. (Pm)