FNIRS Neurofeedback Improve Attention And Inhibitory Control Abilities

Neurofeedback can be used in the therapy context.It feeds back the physiological signals that the individual usually cannot feel.Through the feedback,individual can acquires the ability to regulate these physiological signals independently,and achieves the therapeutic purpose.In recent years,functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy(fNIRS)has been widely used in various fields.fNIRS neurofeedback provides the subjects the information of their brain activities,which can help them observe and self-regulate their brain activities.The purpose of this study is to investigated whether fNIRS neurofeedback can improve subjects’ attention and inhibition control abilities.30 college students were recruited in this study.Six fNIRS neurofeedback training sessions were conducted within 15 days.The long-term effects of fNIRS neurofeedback training were tested after 47 days.The dorsolateral prefrontal lobe was selected as the target brain area for feedback.The real-time brain activity during training was converted into animation and displayed on the computer screen.The subjects were trained to modulate the activities of the dorsolateral prefrontal lobe brain area.The attention network task(ANT),stop signal task(Stop-signal task)and Stroop task were selected to test subjects’ attention and inhibition control abilities.In study 1,fNIRS was used to measure the activity of prefrontal lobe in ANT,Stop-signal and Stroop tasks.The baseline levels of attention and inhibition control were obtained.The results showed that subjects displayed significant alertness,orientation and conflict in ANT tasks.The fNIRS results showed that there was significant positive activation in the frontal oculomotor area and negative activation in the frontal pole and dorsolateral prefrontal lobe.In the Stop-signal task,the frontal eye movement area,dorsolateral prefrontal lobe and frontal pole area were significantly activated under ‘Go’ condition and successfully inhibited ‘Nogo’ condition.The dorsolateral prefrontal lobe was negatively activated under failed ‘Nogo’ condition.In the Stroop task,subjects’ response time under the color word conflict condition was significantly slower than the consistent condition.The fNIRS results showed that part of the dorsolateral prefrontal lobe and frontal pole were negatively activated when the conflict/consistent stimulus followed by the consistent stimulus.Study 2 exam the effects of fNIRS neurofeedback training on subjects’ attention and inhibition control abilities.The results showed that the scores of blood oxygen control test and the frontal lobe activation induced by the test were gradually increasing as the training going on.Similarly,the average difficulty level of feedback training is also increasing as the training going on.The results of ANT showed that the effect of alertness in the post-test was significantly higher than that in the pre-test,indicating that the attention ability of the subjects increased after the fNIRS neurofeedback training.fNIRS results showed that the activation of dorsolateral prefrontal lobe and frontal pole under ANT alertness condition was significantly higher in posttest.The activation of dorsolateral prefrontal lobe and frontal pole under ANT task orientation was significantly lower than pre-test.The activation of frontal eye field area under ANT conflict was significantly lower than pre-test.fNIRS results of Stop signal task showed that the activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal lobe was significantly lower than pretest in the fail ‘Nogo’ condition.The results of Stroop task showed that subjects’ response speed in the conflict condition was significantly faster than pre-test,indicating the improvement of conflict resolution ability.fNIRS results showed that the brain activation level in the dorsolateral prefrontal lobe was significantly higher than that in the pretest under the consistency condition.Results indicated that after training,subjects’ ability to regulate blood oxygen activity has increased,and their attention and conflict resolution ability increased.Study 3 examined whether subjects could maintain their ability to regulate blood oxygen activity independently after 40-50 days without training,and whether their attention and inhibition and control ability declined.The results of study 3 showed that after a long break,the average scores reached by the subjects in the second blood oxygen control test were still significantly higher than the pre-test.decreased,but after one training,it returned to the level before interval.Similarly,after the break,subjects can still achieve the pre-break difficulty level.In the ANT task,the alertness and conflict effects were significantly higher than the pre-test.It showed that the improvement of alertness and conflict resolution ability after training are still maintained,even improved after a long rest.There were no significant differences between tests in the Stop-signal task.In the Stroop task,the subjects’ response time under color word conflict was significantly higher than pre-test.Results from each task were similar to those of post-test,which indicated that the subjects’ attention and inhibition control abilities improved by neurofeedback training were maintained.The results of fNIRS showed no difference between pre-test,post-test and follow-up test.All results show that fNIRS neurofeedback training can improve the attention and inhibotroy control ability of college students.The effect of neurofeedback training can be maintained after 40-50 days of interval without training.fNIRS neurofeedback modulation skill is easy to master.Also the training process is both convenient and fast.fNIRS neurofeedback training can significantly improve the attention and inhibition control ability of ordinary people,which effect can be maintained for a long time,It’s an effective means to improve attention and enhance potential.This study covers the neurofeedback training from the special population to the normal population,and accumulates more extensive data of fNIRS neurofeedback training.It confirmed the effect of fNIRS nerve feedback training on improving attention and inhibiting control ability,and contributed to the popularization of this technology.