Neurofeedback
Imagine seeing exactly how your brain responds to stimuli in real-time.
Neurofeedback offers a biological approach to changing the way you respond to triggers and stress.
The human brain is an incredibly complex organ, and there is still so much for us to learn about it. Just as we continue to learn about the brain, the brain continues to learn and adapt with new information, experiences, and environments.
Neuroplasticity is what allows the brain to evolve and create new neural pathways, and it is this ability of the brain that has led to the positive outcomes of neurofeedback therapy.
What is Neurofeedback?
Neurofeedback is a non-invasive therapy method that uses real-time biofeedback to train the brain to biologically change the way it functions and responds to certain stimuli. Neurofeedback therapy helps harmonize brainwaves and encourages healthy development of the brain’s activity patterns and functions.
The way you think, talk, walk, feel, and everything else you do both consciously and unconsciously, is controlled by electrical impulses, or brain waves.
Understanding Biofeedback
Biofeedback is a technique used to teach patients to voluntarily control processes they previously thought to be involuntary. It’s a mind-body process that uses different equipment to access information about physiological functions, such as blood pressure and heart rate, when a patient is exposed to certain stimuli.
Patients visually see how their body reacts to certain triggers so they can then practice changing these reactions and learn how to self-regulate.
Biofeedback is a technique used to teach patients to voluntarily control processes they previously thought to be involuntary. It’s a mind-body process that uses different equipment to access information about physiological functions, such as blood pressure and heart rate, when a patient is exposed to certain stimuli.
Patients visually see how their body reacts to certain triggers so they can then practice changing these reactions and learn how to self-regulate.
Neurofeedback, also known as EEG (electroencephalogram) biofeedback, is a form of biofeedback that focuses exclusively on brain function, rather than all physiology.
The way you think, talk, walk, feel, and everything else you do both consciously and unconsciously, is controlled by electrical impulses, or brain waves. These brain waves are different frequencies, depending on the action or reaction you’re experiencing.
Through biofeedback, we can see these brain waves in action. When the patient is calm and relaxed, they observe what that looks like on the EEG. The therapist will then introduce stimuli meant to trigger symptoms of anxiety, depression, or other mental health and behavioral disorders. When that stimuli is introduced, the patient can see how those brain waves change.
Seeing the visualization of the reactions in our brain helps us learn to control those reactions. Neurotherapy can help patients control their reactions, and bring their brain back to baseline.
It’s All About Communication
People say communication is key for relationships. Well, this is true for the relationship with your body and brain, and within your brain, too.
Mental health disorders often affect how the brain communicates. Parts of the brain may over-communicate, under-communicate, or not communicate at all.
Fortunately, just like you can train your body, you can train your brain. Through trial and error and practice with the right therapists and techniques, you can rewire your brain to a healthier circuit.
If anxiety is taking over your life, know that it can get better. Neurofeedback therapy is a great treatment option to help you regain control of your anxiety and your life back.
Increasing Brain Connectivity
Studies have shown neurofeedback therapy can help increase the connectivity and communication between the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus through exposure to stimuli that may have previously been anxiety inducing. However, a healthier response is learned through the neurofeedback process.
Enhanced connectivity among these areas of the brain helps people regulate their emotions and fear. This is useful when they are exposed to a real or perceived threat.
Using Biofeedback to Change Our Behavior
The way your brain reacts to certain stimuli can be changed through neurofeedback. Your brain is a muscle with muscle memory, just like any other muscle in your body.
When you practice any skill repeatedly, you get to the point that you can perform that skill the same way over and over again without any conscious thought. Think about those things you “never forget” once you learn, such as riding a bike, or even something as simple as walking.
For example, someone might turn their feet in when they walk that causes them pain in their ankles. Through training and repetition, they can learn to straighten out their gait.
The same can happen in the brain. It already has neural pathways that lead us to do things or think a certain way. However, with training and practice, the brain can create new synapses and neural pathways that change the way we do things or think and feel.
Neurofeedback presents a visual or auditory representation of our brain working in real time.
Conditioning the Brain Just Like the Body
Athletes sometimes record themselves performing a skill so they can go back to visually see what they are doing right or wrong. It’s the same reason dance studios are full of mirrors.
Neurofeedback does the same thing but for the brain in real time. While a patient is being exposed to certain visual and auditory cues, neurofeedback measures their brain activity. Those visual and auditory cues are altered by coaching people into getting the desired brain response.
With training and practice, the brain can create new synapses and neural pathways that change the way we do things or think and feel.
The changing stimuli is a form of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is a method that uses positive and negative reinforcement to obtain a desired outcome. It creates a connection between particular behaviors and a reward or a consequence.
Who Can Neurofeedback Benefit?
While some information about neurofeedback therapy is still unknown, it has many positive outcomes and a lot of potential in a field that is in desperate need of successful treatments. A variety of mental, behavioral, and cognitive disorders can be treated using neurofeedback therapy, either alone or in conjunction with other therapies, to improve mood, focus, and brain function.
Neurotherapy can be helpful in treating disorders such as ADHD, depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, sleep disorders, developmental delays, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injuries.
Neurofeedback is essentially rewiring your brain to think and respond in a healthier manner. Therefore, the potential is limitless, and neurofeedback therapy could be used for both major and minor changes people wish to see.
What Happens in Your Brain When You’re Anxious?
We once believed that the amygdala was the sole part of the brain causing anxiety. However, new research and technologies have shown there is a lot more of the brain in play than just the amygdala alone.
FMRI imaging has shown that anxiety is a complex disorder involving the interplay of many parts of the brain, neurons, and hormones. Different parts of the brain are usually working together. With anxiety disorders, different brain regions and landmarks are working more or less actively than they would in a typical brain.
Related Articles: Living with Anxiety, High-Functioning Anxiety
The Amygdala
The amygdala serves many purposes. Two of these are emotional processing and memory. The amygdala specifically processes strong emotions such as pleasure and fear. People with anxiety disorders have an overactive amygdala
The Hippocampus
Located right next to the amygdala, the hippocampus is associated with memory formation. It communicates with the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala and has the ability to help or exacerbate anxiety.
The hippocampus can bring memories to light in times of fear that either dampen the fear, or heighten it.
Say someone is getting ready to jump off the diving board. Their fear and anxiety rises as they near the edge. The hippocampus could recall a memory from the past of them doing a perfect dive off where they then resurfaced and swam easily to the side of the pool. This memory would help ease the fear and anxiety the person is experiencing.
Conversely, the hippocampus could resurface a memory of a time the individual accidentally belly flopped off the diving board and gasped for air as their head rose back up above the water. This memory would heighten the fear and anxiety that the individual is already feeling.
Researchers have found that the hippocampus of individuals with anxiety disorders are smaller and lighter than those in typical brains. This could affect the way someone's brain encodes memories and how they resurface.
Other important parts of the brain that contribute to anxiety are:
- The Prefrontal Cortex: The frontal lobes are the largest lobes of the brain that house a plethora of human functions. The prefrontal cortex within the frontal lobe is home to many areas that play a role in anxiety disorders.
- MPFC: The medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is associated with information processing of ourselves and other people. People with anxiety and stress disorders have reduced connectivity, and therefore communication, between the MPFC and the amygdala. When anxious feelings arise, this lack of connectivity leads to a lower ability to regulate those feelings.
- dACC: The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) is hyperactive in people with anxiety and other disorders. It increases our response to fear or a threat. When it is overactive, it heightens our anxiety and fear.
- rACC: Fear and threat responses are regulated by the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC). People with anxiety and other disorders exhibit reduced regulation within this area.
These are the main areas of the volume working too hard or not enough in people with anxiety and stress disorders. Anxiety is a complex, “whole brain” disorder.
What’s Like to be in a Neurofeedback Session?
Neurofeedback therapy will generally take place in a room with a relaxing atmosphere and no distractions in order to make the patient as comfortable as possible. Once the patient is ready, the therapist will put on a helmet, cap, or headband attached to electrodes that register the client's brainwaves.
Once the client is situated, the therapist will then present stimuli in a passive or active way. The patient may sit or lay down and simply be exposed to visual or auditory stimuli. Or they may be asked to engage in an activity on a monitor, similar to playing a video game.
Like most forms of therapy, neurofeedback is individualized, and varies based on what issue the patient needs to address. The diagnosis or end goal will dictate which type of brain waves are being targeted.
Seeing the Reaction
The electrodes gather information about the patient’s brain waves, in a process called brain mapping. The therapist and patient can see these brain waves in real time. The biofeedback will change depending on the frequency of the brain waves. The live biofeedback is how the brain activity is “shown” to the patient.
For example, visual feedback may fade in color with an undesirable reaction and brighten in color with a desirable reaction. With repetition, this encourages the brain to respond to a trigger with the desired reaction or emotion.
Controlling the Reaction
This causes the brain to learn how to control its unconscious response to stimuli. Patients repeat the process as often as is necessary. One session typically lasts 30-60 minutes, and patients usually see results after several sessions. But once again, everyone responds to neurofeedback therapy differently. One person might need longer or more frequent therapy sessions than someone else.
Different mental, mood, behavioral, and cognitive disorders might affect multiple brainwaves. Neurofeedback helps the brain learn to harmonize brain waves by bringing the abnormal ones back to a normal rhythm.
Just as athletes train for a competition, patients train for triggering situations or begin to feel dark emotions.
Neurofeedback at Sequoia Behavioral Health
Here at Sequoia Behavioral Health, we have created a comfortable environment with experienced and caring professionals who treat a variety of mental, behavioral, or dual-diagnosis disorders. We provide a 30-day inpatient program for people struggling with substance abuse and mental health with a wide variety of integrated therapies, including neurofeedback. Reach out today to get more information for yourself or your loved one.