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How Neurofeedback Is Revolutionizing Stress Management
We may be able to train ourselves to control brain activity
Fear, stress, and anxiety are some of the biggest dangers to our mental health. But like many of our unpleasant emotions, they have important functional origins; without them, we lack the motivation to flee from danger or avoid harmful behaviors.
The amygdala is a brain structure involved in emotional experiences, such as fear and anxiety. Stressful experiences can adjust its sensitivity. For soldiers who enter military service, for example, symptoms of stress correlate with their amygdala reactivity. After their military service, their amygdala is more responsive to medical images than it was before their service started.
Some evidence suggests that our brain’s prefrontal cortex, an area frequently linked to behavioral control and decision-making, regulates the level of activity in our amygdala when we are faced with unpleasant stressors. Patients with lesions in specific parts of their prefrontal cortex show stronger amygdala responses when looking at distressing images. In a sense, their amygdalae are out of control. Other abnormalities in this control link between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala are characteristic of patients who suffer from depression.
This raises an interesting question: Could we help people deal with stress by training them to control the activity in their amygdala when they are feeling anxious?
One neuroscience technique known as neurofeedback may provide an answer. The general objective behind the technique is to teach people to recognize signals that reflect what their brain is doing and react accordingly. Imagine a computer that shows you a ball moving to the left or right, depending on how active your left or right motor cortex is. Or a computer that rewards you with money every time it detects unconscious brain activity connected to your phobia of snakes. If the computer manages to build a positive rather than negative association to a particular stressor within your brain, it could ultimately reduce your reactions of panic when you encounter that stressor in the real world. This approach has already shown promise in curing phobias.
Many existing treatments for…
