Depression

Neurofeedback for Depression

Depression can rob you of the joy in life and often leaves people a shell of their former selves. Despair, loneliness, sadness and even suicidal thoughts are common. Traditionally, depression is treated with therapy and medication, both of which have limitations. And of course, medications can have significant side effects.

Studies have shown that mood is positive when the left frontal area of your brain is more active than the right frontal area and that mood is poor when the right is more active than the left. This well-established finding can be directly applied with neurofeedback.  Controlled studies show that mood is improved in college students when the left front side of the brain was trained to be more active than the right. One study showed that patterns of thinking also changed. Neurofeedback usually results in more positive thinking patterns and a reduction in patterns of thinking associated with depression.

Depression is usually associated with increased alpha asymmetry in the frontal lobes (Thibodeau et al., 2006). Specifically, depression is correlated with an increase in alpha power in the left frontal lobe and a decrease in the right frontal lobe. Neurofeedback protocols that have shown to be effective for treating depression are alpha asymmetry training (Baehr et al., 1997; Choi et al., 2011) and theta down and beta up (Walker and Lawson, 2013). Another effective approach for treating depression is the “Peniston protocol”, which is a combination of biofeedback, neurofeedback, and psychotherapy (e.g. Saxby and Penniston, 1995). The neurofeedback element of the Peniston protocol focuses on increasing occipital alpha and theta power.