Real-time neurofeedback: methods, practices and application for meditation training

Through real-time neurofeedback, users/patients are empowered to adopt and apply mental strategies by causally influencing their own personalised brain signals, which can potentially produce lasting neurobiological and behavioural impact. Emerging evidence has shown that neurofeedback has therapeutic potential to mitigate dysfunction in clinical disorders such as depression, addiction, stress, etc. To further advance neurofeedback research, dissemination of knowledge to implement neurofeedback studies is timely and critical. This workshop session will aim to introduce neurofeedback research using fMRI, provide a primer on basic neurofeedback methodologies, and involve live demonstration of pseudo real-time neurofeedback using sample data obtained from a recently concluded fMRI neurofeedback-guided meditation training study. The session will be beginner-friendly and not require extensive programming experience/expertise.

Attendees will be provided with the knowledge to: i) understand key elements of real-time neuroimaging and neurofeedback, iii) identify and utilise best practices for designing neurofeedback experiments and conducting real-time neuroimaging analysis, and iii) understand the utility of neurofeedback to augment meditation and mindfulness training and practice for optimum therapeutic benefits.