New Training Technique Induces Changes to the Brain in Record Time

You are probably rushing to get your summer body ready.  Yet, as you are probably well aware daily fitness is the key to building a stronger body and maintaining long-term health. However, how often are you training your brain?

Over the past few years, research and even applications have pointed to the power of training your brain and its ability to combat the development of neurological diseases and improve overall cognitive performance.

Recently researchers from the D'Or Institute for Research and Education have taken brain training to an entirely new level developing a technique that has the power to induce changes of neural networks in under an hour.

High-Intensity Brain Training

In the study published in the scientific journal Neuroimage, researchers further explain their new technique. Brain training with neurofeedback has the ability to strengthen neural connections and the ways different regions of the brain communicate with each other.

SEE ALSO: ULTRASOUND MOVES DRUGS TO ALTER BRAIN ACTIVITY IN RATS

For the uninitiated, neurofeedback, also dubbed Neurotherapy or neurofeedback, is a form of biofeedback that uses real-time displays of brain activity, most commonly electroencephalography, in an attempt to teach self-regulation of brain function.

Neurofeedback itself holds a lot of promise and has many researchers excited. Neurofeedback could be a potentially powerful means to regulate dysfunctional brain areas associated with disorders, such as chronic pain and depression.

As mentioned by Theo Marins, a biomedical scientist from IDOR and the Ph.D. responsible for the study, "We knew that the brain has an amazing ability to adapt itself, but we were not sure that we could observe these changes so quickly. Understanding of how we can impact on brain wiring and functioning is the key to treat neurological disorders".

The Study

The D'Or Institute for Research and Education study included thirty-six healthy subjects who had the aim of increasing the activity of brain regions involved in hand movements. 19 of the participants received “real brain training” while the remaining participants were given a placebo experience.

Taking only thirty minutes to be completed, researchers immediately scanned neural networks in order to investigate the impact of the neurofeedback on brain wiring and communication.

In short, researchers found that the brain of the participants of the actual brain training showcased increased integrity, and the neural network controlling the movements of the body became strengthened.

The team wants to continue more tests and develop new studies to test “whether patients with neurological disorders can also benefit from it.”