Upregulation of emotion areas through neurofeedback with a focus on positive mood

Abstract

Real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging can be used to feed back signal changes from the brain to participants such that they can train to modulate activation levels in specific brain areas. Here we present the first study combining up-regulation of brain areas for positive emotions with psychometric measures to assess the effect of successful self-regulation on subsequent mood. We localized brain areas associated with positive emotions through presentation of standardized pictures with positive valence. Participants up-regulated activation levels in their target area during specific periods, alternating with rest. Participants attained reliable self-control of the target area by the last of three seven-minute runs. This training effect was supported by an extensive network outside the targeted brain region, including higher sensory areas, paralimbic and orbitofrontal cortex. Self-control of emotion areas was not accompanied by clear changes in self-reported emotions; trend-level improvements on depression scores were counteracted by increases on measures of fatigue, resulting in no overall mood improvement. It is possible that benefits of self-control of emotion networks may only appear in people who display abnormal emotional homeostasis. The use of only a single, short, training session, overlap between positive and negative emotion networks and aversive reactions to the scanning environment may have prevented the detection of subtle changes in mood.

The self-regulating brain and neurofeedback: Experimental science and clinical promise

“…For example, healthy individuals showed the ability to self-regulate brain activity in neuroanatomical structures often associated with affect (e.g., insula, amygdala, prefrontal cortex (PFC), and anterior cingulated cortex (ACC)) (Hamilton, Glover, Hsu, Johnson, & Gotlib, 2011;Johnston et al, 2011;Posse et al, 2003;Sitaram, Caria, et al, 2007;Zotev et al, 2011 Subramanian et al, 2011) and depression (e.g., Linden et al, 2012;Young et al, 2014). Although these clinical studies represent mostly nascent efforts in line with pilot data and usually draw on small samples and largely unreplicated assays, the emerging tenor from these preliminary findings seems to speak favorably to the clinical potential of rtfMRI-nf.…”

Resting-State Functional Connectivity Modulation and Sustained Changes After Real-Time Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Neurofeedback Training in Depression

“…In order to achieve such upregulation, the strategy of positive autobiographical memory (AM) retrieval was selected based on findings of amygdala activity (with other medial temporal regions) during AM retrieval (Greenberg et al, 2005), and because it is commonly reported by participants post-hoc as an effective strategy in neurofeedback studies targeting emotional processing brain regions (Caria et al, 2007;Johnston et al, 2011;Linden et al, 2012). More importantly, depressed individuals are impaired at recalling specific and positive AMs (van Vreeswijk and De Wilde, 2004;Young et al, 2012Young et al, , 2013; therefore, reinforcement in the associated brain circuit is hypothesized to occur with the neurofeedback training, which may also help normalize this deficit.…”

Real-Time Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Neurofeedback for Treatment of Parkinson's Disease

“…Thus, it has the potential to be useful in upregulating or downregulating neural activity in disease states. Self-regulation of emotion networks through fMRI-based neurofeedback (Caria et al, 2010;Johnston et al, 2011) has been used in schizophrenia (Ruiz et al, 2011), and fMRI has also been used to document effects of neurofeedback with electroencephalography (EEG) in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (Beauregard and Lévesque, 2006).…”