NIRS neurofeedback in ADHD
-
1
University Hospital Tuebingen, Department of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy, Germany
As a complementary neurobiological treatment, neurofeedback trainings have been extensively studied in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Up till now, most training protocols are based on electrophysiological data derived from electroencephalography (EEG) measurements (see e.g. Arns, Heinrich & Strehl, 2014). In an effort to further optimize available treatment options, we recently developed a neurofeedback protocol that aims at strengthening dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) function based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) data. NIRS is an optical imaging method that uses near-infrared light to assess the BOLD response, in terms of concentration changes of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin, in cortical tissue (Obrig et al., 2000; Strangman, Boas & Sutton, 2002). With a higher spatial resolution than EEG, a good ecological validity and a relatively low propensity for movement-related artifacts, NIRS is well suited to be applied in neuropsychiatric samples and training contexts focusing on circumscribed brain areas (cf. Ehlis, Schneider, Dresler & Fallgatter, 2014). In recent studies, we tested the effects of a newly developed NIRS-based frontal lobe training in 1) a pilot sample of children with ADHD (Marx et al., 2015) and 2) an adult sample of ADHD patients in a randomized controlled trial (Mayer, Wyckoff, Fallgatter, Ehlis & Strehl, 2015). Moreover, we advanced the protocol further by establishing a training scenario in a virtual reality (VR)-based classroom environment. With the latter neurofeedback/VR training, we first tested a healthy pilot sample of young adults with increased impulsivity scores, before initiating a controlled study in an ADHD childhood sample. The results obtained so far indicate 1) significant symptom improvements over the course of 12 NIRS training sessions in children with ADHD (based on parents and teacher ratings as well as neuropsychological data) that seemed to surpass the effects of both a conventional EEG training and an electromyography (EMG)-based biofeedback intervention (Marx et al., 2015); 2) a significant prediction of the training outcome in an adult sample of ADHD patients by frontal lobe parameters obtained at baseline; and 3) positive effects of NIRS-based neurofeedback in a VR environment on measures of motor inhibition in a highly-impulsive sample of healthy adults. Overall, these results indicate that NIRS-based frontal lobe trainings might be an effective intervention in patients with ADHD warranting further studies on the topic. Future projects should focus on the specificity of the training effects as well as optimizations of the training protocol in terms of the number of sessions, context parameters and the exact training measures.
Acknowledgements
The studies presented here were partly supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) as well as IZKF Tübingen (Junior Research Group, grant 2115-0-0).
References
Arns M, Heinrich H, Strehl U (2014) Evaluation of neurofeedback in ADHD: The long and winding road. Biological Psychology 95: 108-115.
Ehlis AC, Schneider S, Dresler T, Fallgatter AJ (2014) Application of functional near-infrared spectroscopy in psychiatry. Neuroimage 85: 478-488.
Marx AM, Ehlis AC, Furdea A, Holtmann M, Banaschweski T, Brandeis D, Rothenberger A, Gevensleben H, Freitag CM, Fuchsenberger Y, Fallgatter AJ, Strehl U (2015) Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) neurofeedback as a treatment for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADDH) – a pilot study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8: 1038.
Mayer K, Wyckoff SN, Fallgatter AJ, Ehlis AC, Strehl U (2015) Neurofeedback as a nonpharmacological treatment for adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials 16: 174.
Obrig H, Wenzel R, Kohl M, Horst S, Wobst P, Steinbrink J, Thomas F, Villringer A (2000) Near-infrared spectroscopy: does it function in functional activation studies of the adult brain? International Journal of Psychophysiology 35: 125-142.
Strangman G, Boas DA, Sutton JP (2002) Non-invasive neuroimaging using near-infrared light. Biological Psychiatry 52: 679-693.
Keywords:
near-infrared spectroscopy,
neurofeedback (NF),
ADHD,
NIRS,
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,
impulsivity,
virtual reality
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:
Ehlis
A and
Fallgatter
AJ
(2016). NIRS neurofeedback in ADHD.
Conference Abstract:
SAN2016 Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2016.220.00088
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
29 Jul 2016;
Published Online:
01 Aug 2016.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Ann-Christine Ehlis, University Hospital Tuebingen, Department of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy, Tuebingen, Germany, Ann-Christine.Ehlis@med.uni-tuebingen.de