Abstract

ALINO COSTA, Marta et al. An effective Neurofeedback training, with cortisol correlates, in a clinical case of anxiety. Univ. Psychol. [online]. 2016, vol.15, n.spe5, pp.1-10. ISSN 1657-9267.  https://doi.org/10.11144/Javeriana.upsy15-5.entc.

Neurofeedback treatments have shown successful results in anxiety disorders. The effectiveness of a betal Neurofeedback protocol was tested in a longitudinal clinical case study. A participant suffering from an anxiety syndrome underwent 10 sessions of Neurofeedback, in a protocol consisting of uptraining the betal rhythm (16-21 Hz) while downtraining the theta (4-8 Hz) band. State anxiety and salivary cortisol levels were measured during each of the 10 sessions following a pre/post design. Initial and final examinations of anxiety symptoms and sustained attention performance were also implemented. The final evaluation revealed that levels of anxiety fell within a normative range and that sustained attention had improved. A t-test for related samples disclosed a significant improvement of beta1 amplitude across the sessions, without modifications in untrained bands. A significant inverse correlation between beta1 amplitude and salivary cortisol was detected, suggesting that brain activity could be considered a marker of anxiety. The validation of the betal Neurofeedback protocol was assessed according to independence, trainability and interpretability criteria. We demonstrate the effectiveness of a neurofeedback protocol on anxiety and sustained attention, the success of which may lie in the reestablishment of an optimal cortical arousal capable of inhibiting elevated amygdalar activity.

Keywords : Neurofeedback; anxiety; cortisol; betal band; theta band; Neurofeedback; ansiedad; cortisol; ritmo betal; ritmo theta.

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