EEG-Biofeedback as a Tool to Modulate Arousal: Trends and Perspectives for Treatment of ADHD and Insomnia

Abstract

EEG-biofeedback (EBF) is a method to provide information about a person’s brain state using real-time processing of electroencephalographic data (Budzynski, 1973; Morin, 2006). The idea behind EBF training is that by giving the participant access to a physiological state she will be able to modulate this state in a desired direction. As such EBF makes use of a brain-computer interface (BCI), in itself a field of study that has seen rapidly growing interest over recent years (Felton et al., 2007; Kubler, Kotchoubey et al., 2001; Leuthardt et al., 2006; Schalk et al., 2007). There is a distinction between using BCI to gain control over an external device or to use it to modify the internal state of the user. The former has seen fascinating applications in facilitating control of prosthetics (Nicolelis, 2003) or in offering new channels of communication to the paralysed (Birbaumer et al., 1999; Krusienski et al., 2006; Krusienski et al., 2008).