Introduction: Neurofeedback training has been an increasingly used technique in sport; however, most of the protocols used in athletes are based in the results obtained in nonathletic population. Purpose: Understand if a specific neurofeedback training protocol implemented in a nonathletic population can improve short-term memory and reaction time in athletes. Methods: A total of 45 subjects participated in the experiment (mean ± SD for age: 23.31 ± 4.20 years). For athletes, 12 neurofeedback training sessions were performed; for the nonathletes, 15 neurofeedback training were performed. Each session had 25 min of effective neurofeedback training. Results: Despite the nonathletes group's increased standard alpha band (SAB) relative amplitude and individual alpha band (IAB) relative amplitude after 12 sessions of neurofeedback training (p < .005), only the athletes intervention group had positive results in reaction time (p < .001 in oddball test). Not only was the null hypothesis rejected by the differences of IAB and SAB relative amplitudes between and within protocols but also by the performance tests. Conclusion: Neurofeedback training increases the relative amplitude of the bands in the nonathletes group; however, only the athletes have shown to improve performances tests after 12 neurofeedback training sessions.

Neurofeedback training has shown benefits in clinical treatment and behavioral performance enhancement. Despite the wide range of applications, no consensus has been reached about the optimal training schedule. In this work, an EEG neurofeedback practical experiment was conducted aimed at investigating the effects of training intensity on the enhancement of the amplitude in the individual upper alpha band. We designed INTENSIVE and SPARSE training modalities, which differed regarding three essential aspects of training intensity: the number of sessions, the duration of a session, and the interval between sessions. Nine participants in the INTENSIVE group completed 4 sessions with 37.5 minutes each during consecutive days, while nine participants in the SPARSE group performed 6 sessions of 25 minutes spread over approximately 3 weeks. As a result, regarding the short-term effects, the upper alpha band amplitude change within sessions did not significantly differ between the two groups. Nonetheless, only the INTENSIVE group showed a significant increase in the upper alpha band amplitude. However, for the sustained effects across sessions, none of the groups showed significant changes in the upper alpha band amplitude across the whole course of training. The findings suggest that the progression within session is favored by the intensive design. Therefore, based on these findings, it is proposed that training intensity influences EEG self-regulation within sessions. Further investigations are needed to isolate different aspects of training intensity and effectively confirm if one modality globally outperforms the other.