A systematic review of fMRI neurofeedback reporting and effects in clinical populations

Tursic, Anita; Eck, Judith; Lührs, Michael; Linden, David; Goebel, Rainer

doi:10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102496

Cited by 58 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 127 publications

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“…However, none of these studies reported serious side effects for the neurofeedback intervention. These findings are in line with those reported by systematic reviews of other clinical and non-clinical neurofeedback applications (Kohl et al, 2020;Trambaiolli et al, 2021;Tursic et al, 2020). The safety and feasibility of such experimental setups is especially important in dementia research (as discussed in section 4), since changes in environment, interaction with experimenters, and task demands can trigger emotional and psychological distress in elderly participants (Hellström et al, 2007;Novek and Wilkinson, 2019).…”

Section: Neurofeedback and The Aging Brainsupporting

confidence: 87%

Neurofeedback and the aging brain: a systematic review of training protocols for dementia and mild cognitive impairment

Trambaiolli¹,

Cassani²,

Mehler³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Dementia describes a set of symptoms that occur in neurodegenerative disorders and that is characterized by gradual loss of cognitive and behavioral functions. Recently, non-invasive neurofeedback training has been explored as a potential complementary treatment for patients suffering from dementia or mild cognitive impairment. Here we systematically reviewed studies that explored neurofeedback training protocols based on electroencephalography or functional magnetic resonance imaging for these groups of patients. From a total of 1,912 screened studies, 10 were included in our final sample (N=208 independent participants in experimental and N=81 in the control groups completing the primary endpoint). We compared the clinical efficacy across studies, and evaluated their experimental designs and reporting quality. In most studies, patients showed improved scores in different cognitive tests. However, data from randomized controlled trials remains scarce, and clinical evidence based on standardized metrics is still inconclusive. In light of recent meta-research developments in the neurofeedback field and beyond, quality and reporting practices of individual studies are reviewed. We conclude with recommendations on best practices for future studies that investigate the effects of neurofeedback training in dementia and cognitive impairment.

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Section: Neurofeedback and The Aging Brainsupporting

confidence: 87%

Neurofeedback and the aging brain: a systematic review of training protocols for dementia and mild cognitive impairment

Trambaiolli¹,

Cassani²,

Mehler³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In neurofeedback participants are trained to modulate their own neural activity in order to influence their behavior and patterns of thinking. When the targeted regions of the brain are disease-related, such as a biomarker, then real-time fMRI neurofeedback may aid in the alleviation of psychiatric symptoms (Coben et al 2010, Scheinost et al 2013, Sulzer et al 2013, Stoeckel et al 2014, Sitaram et al 2017, Yamada et al 2017, Watanabe et al 2017, Rance et al 2018, Young et al 2018, Lubianiker et al 2019, Paret et al 2019, Shibata et al 2019, Tursic et al 2020). While medicinal treatment of depression leads to relatively high relapse rates (Rush et al 2006, Paykel 2008, Lépine and Briley 2011) and an array of unpleasant side-effects (Thase et al 2005, Cascade et al 2009), to date, no serious side-effects have been reported as arising as a consequence of real-time fMRI neurofeedback.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduction of brooding and more general depressive symptoms after fMRI neurofeedback targeting a melancholic functional-connectivity biomarker

Yamada

Kawashima

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Depressive disorders contribute heavily to global disease burden; This is possibly because patients are usually treated homogeneously, despite having heterogeneous symptoms with differing underlying neural mechanisms. On the contrary, treatment that directly influences the neural circuit relevant to an individual patient’s subset of symptoms might more precisely and thus effectively aid in the alleviation of their specific symptoms. We tested this hypothesis, using fMRI functional connectivity neurofeedback to target a neural biomarker that objectively relates to a specific subset (melancholic) of depressive symptoms and that is generalizable across independent cohorts of patients. The targeted biomarker was the functional connectivity between the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left precuneus, which has been shown in a data-driven manner to be less anticorrelated in patients with melancholic depression than in healthy controls. We found that the more a participant normalized this biomarker, the more related (brooding and more general depressive), but not unrelated (trait anxiety), symptoms were reduced. Thus, one-to-one correspondence between a normalized neural network and decreased depressive symptoms was demonstrated. These results were found in two experiments that took place several years apart by different experimenters, indicating their reproducibility. Indicative of their potential clinical utility, effects remained one-two months later.

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“…We also evaluated each article based on the study design and reporting quality as previously conducted in systematic neurofeedback reviews (Kohl et al, 2020;Trambaiolli et al, 2021). For this, we scored each study according to the checklist for quasi-experimental studies of the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal tools (Tufanaru et al, 2017), and the "Consensus on the Reporting and Experimental Design of Neurofeedback studies" (CRED-nf) checklist (Ros et al, 2019). The JBI checklist includes items regarding clarity of cause and effect, similar participants, similar treatment in compared groups, existence of a control group/condition, multiple measurement points of the outcome, completion of follow-up, similar outcome measurements in compared groups, reliability of outcome measurements, and appropriate statistical methods.…”

Section: Data Extraction and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following our second aim, we present a systematic evaluation of studies' experimental design and reporting quality using the CRED-nf checklist (Ros et al, 2019) and the JBI critical appraisal tools (Tufanaru et al, 2017) (Figure 3, please see Supplementary Material for detailed scoring for each study).…”

Section: Experimental Design and Reporting Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurofeedback and the Aging Brain: A Systematic Review of Training Protocols for Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Trambaiolli

Cassani

Mehler

et al. 2021

Front. Aging Neurosci.

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Dementia describes a set of symptoms that occur in neurodegenerative disorders and that is characterized by gradual loss of cognitive and behavioral functions. Recently, non-invasive neurofeedback training has been explored as a potential complementary treatment for patients suffering from dementia or mild cognitive impairment. Here we systematically reviewed studies that explored neurofeedback training protocols based on electroencephalography or functional magnetic resonance imaging for these groups of patients. From a total of 1,912 screened studies, 10 were included in our final sample (N = 208 independent participants in experimental and N = 81 in the control groups completing the primary endpoint). We compared the clinical efficacy across studies, and evaluated their experimental designs and reporting quality. In most studies, patients showed improved scores in different cognitive tests. However, data from randomized controlled trials remains scarce, and clinical evidence based on standardized metrics is still inconclusive. In light of recent meta-research developments in the neurofeedback field and beyond, quality and reporting practices of individual studies are reviewed. We conclude with recommendations on best practices for future studies that investigate the effects of neurofeedback training in dementia and cognitive impairment.

show abstract

A systematic review of fMRI neurofeedback reporting and effects in clinical populations

Cited by 58 publications

References 127 publications

Neurofeedback and the aging brain: a systematic review of training protocols for dementia and mild cognitive impairment

Neurofeedback and the aging brain: a systematic review of training protocols for dementia and mild cognitive impairment

Reduction of brooding and more general depressive symptoms after fMRI neurofeedback targeting a melancholic functional-connectivity biomarker

Neurofeedback and the Aging Brain: A Systematic Review of Training Protocols for Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment

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