Placebo science and neurofeedback
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1
McGill University, Canada
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2
The Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital, Canada
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3
Institute for Community and Family Psychiatry, Canada
EEG neurofeedback appears to both improve normal brain function and treat a wide range of mental disorders, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, epilepsy, depression, anxiety, insomnia, autism spectrum disorder, and alcoholism. Despite a relatively long history, however, the medical community continues to question the clinical utility of this technique. To earn widespread appellation as evidence-based medicine, neurofeedback must meet three challenges: 1) perform at least on par with standard-of-care treatments in randomized controlled trials for each disorder where neurofeedback purports to help; 2) consistently outperform highly comparable placebo control conditions (e.g., sham neurofeedback); and 3) establish a clear mechanism for the claimed therapeutic benefits. In this talk, we will elucidate the crosstalk between placebo science and neurofeedback, including fMRI-nf.
Acknowledgements
We thank our colleague, Michael Lifshitz, for comments regarding our research. Dr. Amir Raz acknowledges funding from the Canada Research Chair program, Discovery and Discovery Acceleration Supplement grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Bial Foundation. Robert T. Thibault, also a Bial recipient, acknowledges an Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship from
Keywords:
EEG,
Neurofeedback,
Real-time brain imaging,
Neurotherapy,
Applied Neurosciences,
ADHD,
Psychiatry,
EEG biofeedback,
brain self-regulation,
Self-regulation
Conference:
SAN2016 Meeting, Corfu, Greece, 6 Oct - 9 Oct, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation in SAN 2016 Conference
Topic:
Symposium in fMRI and NIRS Neurofeedback
Citation:
Thibault
RT and
Raz
A
(2016). Placebo science and neurofeedback.
Conference Abstract:
SAN2016 Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2016.220.00056
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Received:
29 Jul 2016;
Published Online:
01 Aug 2016.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Amir Raz, The Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at the Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, amir.raz@mcgill.ca