Authors: Elisabeth V C Friedrich Aparajithan Sivanathan Theodore Lim Neil Suttie Sandy Louchart Steven Pillen Jaime A Pineda
Publish Date: 2015/07/26
Volume: 45, Issue: 12, Pages: 4084-4100
Abstract
Neurofeedback training NFT approaches were investigated to improve behavior cognition and emotion regulation in children with autism spectrum disorder ASD Thirteen children with ASD completed pre/postassessments and 16 NFTsessions The NFT was based on a game that encouraged social interactions and provided feedback based on imitation and emotional responsiveness Bidirectional training of EEG mu suppression and enhancement 8–12 Hz over somatosensory cortex was compared to the standard method of enhancing mu Children learned to control mu rhythm with both methods and showed improvements in 1 electrophysiology increased mu suppression 2 emotional responsiveness improved emotion recognition and spontaneous imitation and 3 behavior significantly better behavior in everyday life Thus these NFT paradigms improve aspects of behavior necessary for successful social interactionsThis research was supported by a fellowship provided by the Max Kade Foundation to the Department of Cognitive Science UCSD and by grant funding from the ISNR Research Foundation the European Community Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007 2013 nr 258169 and the EPSRC/IMRC Grants 113946 Portions of the research in this paper uses the MMIFacial Expression Database collected by Valstar and Pantic The authors thank all colleagues and students from the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at UCSD with special thanks to Alexandra Tonnesen for handling the evaluations and from the Alliant International University San Diego with special thanks to Richard Gevirtz for his support as well as all participants and their familiesEF conceived of the study designed and coordinated the study performed the measurement the analyses of the EEG and EMG data and the statistical analyses interpreted the data and drafted the manuscript AS and TL implemented the framework to connect the Social Mirroring Game to the NFT in a closed feedback loop in realtime NS and SL developed the Social Mirroring Game SP participated in the analyses of the EEG and EMG data JP participated in the design coordination analyses and interpretation of the data and in drafting the manuscript All authors read and approved the final manuscript
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