2011 ANNUAL AWARD

Each year, the Foundation for Neurofeedback and Applied Neuroscience presents an award – which includes an honorarium of one thousand dollars – to the author of the publication that, in its consideration, has most significantly advanced the field of neurofeedback during the preceding year.

Neurofeedback – also known as neurotherapy or EEG biofeedback – is a noninvasive technology that makes it possible for an individual to learn to change his or her cognitive functioning, affective state or overall performance level by learning to voluntarily vary the patterns of electrical activity within his or her brain.

For many years, neurofeedback practitioners have helped clients make positive changes by teaching them to control their brain and nervous system activity.   To assess the outcome of their training, clinicians have often relied on a client’s description of improvement – known as verbal report.   Research studies have also used verbal reports from clients and their families to measure how well neurofeedback works.   Some scientists have not been satisfied with this type of evidence, however.  Verbal reports, they have suggested, are too easily influenced by what the client or experimenters expect to happen, and more objective evidence is needed.

The recipients of this year’s award have produced more objective evidence.  The researchers found changes in the function of motor neurons, cells in the brain that control skeletal muscles, following neurofeedback training.  The changes are an example of neural plasticity, the brain’s ability to alter its own function and structure.

In their study, Ros and his associates trained separate groups of college students to control two different types of brain rhythms known to have opposite effects on motor neuron activity.   One group learned to suppress alpha rhythms in their brains.  Decreases in alpha activity often cause motor neurons to become more sensitive and reactive to incoming signals.  The second group learned to increase the low beta rhythms that usually cause motor neurons to become less sensitive to input.

At the beginning of the study, both groups received one 20 minute session of neurofeedback training.  Students who focused on training their alpha rhythms successfully learned to reduce them, but those in the group that was trained on low beta rhythms were unable to learn control them by the end of training.  (In clinical settings, training involving these frequencies is generally longer.  It is likely that the brief beta training in the study did not allow enough practice for learning to occur.)    Nonetheless, the training phase of the study produced two groups, both exposed neurofeedback, one with newly learned control over brain activity and one that had not yet learned control.

Subsequent to the training, the researchers assessed its effects by triggering the subjects’ motor neurons through short magnetic pulses that were applied over the areas of the head where the motor neurons reside.  When motor neuron sensitivity is high, neurons will respond more strongly to the pulses and larger contractions will occur in the muscles they control.  When motor neurons are less sensitive, little or no activity will be detected in the muscles.

The subjects were tested in this manner immediately after the neurofeedback training.  Those who learned alpha suppression showed a significant increase of muscle response compared to the levels they exhibited prior to training.  Those unsuccessfully trained in low beta showed no changes.  The elevated motor neuron sensitivity in the group successfully trained with neurofeedback lasted until the end of the experiment – a period of 20 minutes.

These findings provide convincing evidence that brief neurofeedback training changes motor neurons in the brain in significant ways.  We do not yet know what processes produce this long-term plasticity in the brain’s neural network.   However, Dr. Ros’ team has provided evidence that neurofeedback impacts more than the verbal reports of clients - it produces measurable functional changes in the brain.

For further technical detail, please see the original research article:

Ros, T., Munneke, M. A. M., Ruge, D., Gruzelier, J. H. and Rothwell, J. C. (2010), “Endogenous control of waking brain rhythms induces neuroplasticity in humans,” European Journal of Neuroscience, 31: 770–778. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-9568.2010.07100.x.

2010 Annual Award to Arns et al.

The 2010 FNAN award for excellence in neurofeedback went to Martijn Arns, Sabine de Ridder, Ute Strehl, Marinus Breteler, and Anton Coenen for their article “Efficacy of Neurofeedback Treatment in ADHD: the Effects on Inattention, Impulsivity and Hyperactivity: a Meta-Analysis,” which appeared in Volume 40, of the journal Clinical EEG and Neuroscience.

Neurofeedback – also known as neurotherapy or EEG biofeedback – is a noninvasive technology that makes it possible for an individual to learn to change his or her cognitive functioning, affective state or overall performance level by learning to voluntarily vary the patterns of electrical activity within his or her brain.

There is probably more literature published on the efficacy of neurofeedback as a means of alleviating the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than any other application of this technology.  But while there have been numerous ADHD studies, until very recently each has been criticized for one or more shortcomings.

Although recent studies have largely addressed the specific concerns voiced about many of these earlier investigations – size of study, lack of randomization or lack of suitable controls – until now, no one has pulled all of this data into one cohesive whole.

After reviewing the literature on neurofeedback and ADHD as a whole, Martijn Arns and his co-authors selected fifteen studies that were of a sufficient confidence level, and employed the guidelines for clinical efficacy of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback and the International Society for Neurofeedback and Research (which are similar to those of the American Psychological Association), to rate the level of efficacy for Neurofeedback in ADHD.

Based on a meta-analysis of these fifteen studies, the authors concluded that neurofeedback is efficacious and specific with a large effect size for inattention and impulsivity, and with a medium effect size for hyperactivity.

Commenting on the importance of this study, FNAN science advisor Dr. Harold Burke noted that: “Meta-analyses have become increasingly important in the last decade, particularly given tighter research budgets, as such techniques increase the size of N through combining data from numerous studies.  This allows for the increased ability to detect real effects and, very importantly, to measure effect sizes (how large the difference was and whether that difference may be clinically relevant/important).  However, such meta-analyses must be well done; and this study published by Arns and his colleagues represents an excellent example.  In addition, this study asked a number of important questions in addition to the primary one concerning the overall efficacy of neurofeedback for treating ADHD.  I strongly urge anyone who has not read this article to do so and to obtain a copy to share with other professionals.” 

Martijn Arns is a PhD student at Utrecht University (Dept. of Experimental Psychology) and director of Brainclinics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, which specializes in the research and application of neuroscience to diagnostics and new treatments in the mental health care field.

Arns studied biological psychology at the Radboud University, Nijmegen.  He founded Brainclinics nearly ten years ago, after several projects at the Westmead Hospital in Sydney, the Max Planck Institute in Munich and Organon Research in Newhouse.

Arns’ co-authors include: Sabine de Ridder of Brainclinics Treatment; Ute Strehl of the University of Tübingen; Marinus Breteler of the EEG Resource Institute and the Radboud University Department of Clinical Psychology; and Anton Coenen of the Radboud University Department of Biological Psychology.

2009 Annual Award to Juri Kropotov

The winner of the 2009 FNAN annual award for excellence in neurofeedback was Juri Kropotov of the Institute for the Brain in St. Petersburg and the Norwegian University for Science and Technology in Trondheim. 

Dr. Kropotov was recognized for the publication of his book, “Quantitative EEG, Event-Related Potentials and Neurotherapy,” which provides an evidence-based, unified description of the role of the EEG and event-related potentials as they relate to brain functioning and disorders of the brain, and of the role of neurofeedback in addressing those disorders.   He is also being honored for the invaluable body of work that he has established over the years.

Event-related potentials, or ERPs, are discrete, localized fluctuations in electrical activity in the brain’s cortical areas associated with information flow and evoked by a specific event.

Neurofeedback – also known as neurotherapy or EEG biofeedback – is a noninvasive technology that makes it possible for an individual to learn to change his or her cognitive functioning, affective state or overall performance level by learning to voluntarily vary the patterns of electrical activity within his or her brain. 

Juri Kropotov graduated from the Department of Physics of St. Petersburg State University in 1972, majoring in quantum mechanics, and received his PhD at the Institute for Experimental Medicine in 1975.  The subject of his doctoral thesis was “Slow Processes in the Human Brain.”  Dr. Kropotov was the first to show that the basal ganglia thalamo-cortical circuits of the human brain are involved in cognitive and affective functions.   Between 1986 and 1992, he developed a mathematical model of the cortex – the canonical cortical module – that explained most of the properties of neural activity in the visual cortex.  

During 1990s, Dr. Kropotov became interested in the field of quantitative EEG and evoked potentials in normal subjects, as well as in people suffering from ADHD and in neurological patients in whom intracranial electrodes had been implanted for diagnosis and therapy.  Since 1998, he has been exploring the use of neurofeedback and transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) for the treatment of ADHD and other brain dysfunctions.

Juri Kropotov divides his time between the Institute of the Human Brain of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, where he is the director of the Laboratory for the Neurobiology of Action Programming, and Institute of Psychology at Norwegian University for Science and Technology in Trondheim, where he is a professor.  Dr. Kropotov received the State Prize of the USSR – the highest award in the former Soviet Union – in 1985 for his research in the field of human physiology.  In addition, he has been awarded the Medal of Honor of Russian Federation and the Diploma of the USSR Academy of Sciences for the Highest Achievement (Discovery) in Science. In addition to "Quantitative EEG, Event-Related Potentials and Neurotherapy," Dr. Kropotov has published seven other books and authored more than 180 papers.  He served for many years as an editor of the journal Human Physiology of Russian Academy of Sciences, is ex-president of the European Chapter of the International Society for Neuronal Regulation (iSNR) and is an editor of its journal Neurotherapy.

Quantitative EEG, Event-Related Potentials and Neurotherapy, is published by Academic Press.

Please click on the links below for access to earlier award recipients:

2008 FNAN Award to Robert Coben and Ilean Podolsky The Efficacy of Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Autism

2007 FNAN Award to John Gruzelier and Tobias Egner for Performance Optimization Studies

2006 FNAN Award to Johanne Levesque, Mario Beauregard, and Boalem Mensour for Study Imaging the Effects of Neurofeedback