Neurofeedback Research: What Is It Saying?

One hot topic in the treatment of brain disorders these days surrounds this thing called neurofeedback. What, exactly, is neurofeedback? It is a form of therapy that helps the brain to retrain itself using a type of biofeedback for the brain. This may sound crazy, but there is some major scientific evidence supporting the idea.

In fact, on a scale of one to five, the efficacy of neurofeedback ranks a five. What does this mean? On this scale, a level one theory is something that has not been tested or proven effective at all, which would include things like "old wives' tales."

If, for example, your Aunt Martha tells you that you can get rid of your warts by rubbing maple syrup on them, but she hasn't actually tried it herself; she only heard about it through your Grandma Sally, that would be a level one theory. It is not empirically supported.

A level five theory is both efficacious and specific, meaning that it has been proven true in rigorous scientific study. This would apply if your Aunt Martha is a trained research scientist who has conducted a study that showed maple syrup to be far more effective than a capsule with flour inside, a well known over the counter wart remover, and a popular antiviral wart pill often prescribed by physicians.

Not only that, but another researcher, in a separate study, conducted by a different university, found the very same thing as your Aunt Martha and her team of researchers. Once a theory has reached this level, it is widely accepted by the scientific community, even if it is not common public knowledge.

Biofeedback for the brain has been proven highly effective in one study after another. The outcome of neurofeedback research in studies involving children with ADD/ADHD has been rated at a level five, although neurofeedback is still not widely recognized in the broader scientific community because most medical schools do not teach it yet.

Typically, ideas need to have been proven for some time before they will be taught in medical schools. Nutritional science, for instance, has only been in medical schools for a few years, even though the evidence that affects every aspect of our health has been known for quite some time.

By using neurofeedback to change the way your brain functions, you may profoundly change your life. If you or someone you know struggles with ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, epilepsy, fibromyalgia, or any other disorder that originates within the brain, you would do well to at least find out more about this fantastic scientific breakthrough.