EEG neurofeedback effects in the treatment of adolescent anorexia nervosa

Abstract

A pre-post design including 22 females was used to evaluate the effectiveness of neurofeedback in the treatment of adolescent anorexia nervosa. Resting EEG measures and a psychological test-battery assessing eating behavior traits, clinical symptoms, emotionality, and mood were obtained. While both the experimental (n = 10) and control group (n = 12) received their usual maintenance treatment, the experimental group received 10 sessions of individual alpha frequency training over a period of 5 weeks as additional treatment. Significant training effects were shown in eating behavior traits, emotion regulation, and in relative theta power in the eyes closed condition. Although the results are limited due to the small sample size, these are the first empirical data demonstrating the benefits of neurofeedback as a treatment adjunct in individuals with anorexia nervosa.

A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled parallel trial of closed-loop infraslow brain training in food addiction

“…This may allow successful control of food provoked by environmental cues. Previous neurofeedback studies in food and alcohol addictions 21 – 23 using the alpha/theta protocol focused on increasing inhibitory control via the ‘top-down’ approach. Among overweight and obese individuals, ‘top-down’ strategies are often used to try and control, resist or distract from behaviours that lead to overeating 41 .…”

“…There is a growing interest regarding the effectiveness of alpha/theta neurofeedback (i.e., increase theta over alpha power) in the treatment of eating disorders (e.g., anorexia nervosa) 21 , and other substance-related addictive disorders 22 . One study has provided evidence that alpha/theta neurofeedback training of Pz can decrease strong food craving for up to 4 months in non-clinical individuals with overeating 23 .…”

Increased frontal electroencephalogram theta amplitude in patients with anorexia nervosa compared to healthy controls

“… 34 EEG-based neurofeedback has also been explored recently as a possible treatment option for AN. 35 …”

Using real-time fMRI brain-computer interfacing to treat eating disorders

“…Neurofeedback based on electroencephalography (EEG) has been used to treat many types of clinical disorders including eating disorders. It has been used to treat binge eating in a randomized controlled trial of female subclinical threshold sample (Schmidt and Martin, 2016) and adolescent anorexia nervosa (Lackner et al, 2016). EEG neurofeedback provides good temporal resolution, is inexpensive and portable when compared to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).…”