Use of Neurofeedback to Enhance Attention After Brain Injury

Summary

Difficulty to sustain attention over a prolonged period of time is one of the core difficulties experienced by people who have undergone traumatic brain injury. Rehabilitation of attention is often based on compensatory strategies, because of the limited impact of cognitive training on improving attentional capacity after brain injury. New therapeutic approaches to explore the plastic recovery of the brain after injury, and consequent performance improvement, are warranted.

Neurofeedback (NFB) allows the self-regulation of brain activity using visual feedback. Very recently, it has been demonstrated that NFB training targeted at reducing alpha power (alpha desynchronization NFB), can induce initial plastic changes in brain networks associated with attention. It has been proposed that NFB can improve cognitive performance by tuning oscillatory activity of the brain towards a more healthy balance between neural network flexibility and stability. It is speculated that the use of alpha desynchronization NFB training, with people who present with brain injury, can enhance sustained attention in as much as the training promotes neural variability during resting state (i.e. more flexible network configuration) and neural stability during a sustained attention task (i.e. more stable network configuration).

However, before assessing the effectiveness of the intervention, it is necessary to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability thereof. This study will recruit 14 participants and randomly assign them to two groups: a NFB group and a video games control group. Long-term changes will be evaluated at two time points for both groups: baseline and post-intervention. The NFB group will have a follow-up session one week after the intervention, to evaluate whether there are long lasting changes after NFB training. In addition, short-term changes of NFB will be evaluated for the experimental group, contrasting EEG activity immediately before and after the last NFB session.

Conditions

• Brain Injuries

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Neurofeedback training

Sixteen 30-minute sessions of neurofeedback training over four weeks: 7 x 3-minute blocks of training flanked by a 3-minute resting state block with eyes-open.

BEHAVIORAL

Video game

Sixteen 30-minute sessions of video game playing over four weeks: 7 x 3-minute blocks flanked by a 3-minute seated relaxation.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Brain Injury Rehabilitation Trust

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Glasgow

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Jon Evans, PhD · Professor of Applied Neuropsychology

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

50 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-02-02

Primary Completion

2018-07-17

Completion

2018-07-17

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations