A review: effects of neurofeedback on patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's disease (AD)

Front Hum Neurosci. 2024 Feb 14:17:1331436. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1331436. eCollection 2023.

Abstract

Neurofeedback training (NFT) is a non-invasive method and has been shown to be effective for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and various psychiatric disorders. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of NFT for patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) or Vascular Diseases (VD), so that we searched research articles from four databases, using the keywords neurofeedback, elderly, MCI, AD, VD, and dementia. As a result, 13 articles were identified regarding the effectiveness of NFT in patients with MCI and AD. Although each study differed in study design, training protocol, electroencephalogram (EEG) electrode placement, and reward and inhibition frequency bands, all were shown to enhance memory, attention, and other cognitive abilities. Additional well-designed, randomized studies with sufficient power are needed to further confirm the effectiveness of NFT.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; cognitive decline; dementia; mild cognitive impairment; neurofeedback.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.