New light on the mechanisms that underly "brain training".
© 2012 EPFL
Recovery of the default mode network after demanding neurofeedback training occurs in spatio-temporally segregated subnetworks.
"Neurofeedback using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging is a new technique for learning of voluntary control of activity in specific brain regions. This opens opportunities for new treatment methods of neurological disease and disorder. However, most conditions are characterized by changes in brain networks and interactions between those. In this work, the group of Prof. Dimitri Van De Ville (Medical Image Processing Lab), in collaboration with researchers of Germany, have discovered that the so-called default-mode network---which is the most characteristic "baseline" network at rest---is modulated differentially in space and time by neurofeedback learning. This finding sheds a new light on the mechanisms that underly such "brain training" and how in the future we might target directly self-regulation of networks instead of specific regions." (Coverpage article)