Researchers have found that individually tailoring brainwave training to each person can enhance cognitive abilities like memory and attention.
Through just 10 hours of practice over 2 days, participants were able to increase their peak “alpha” brainwave frequency.
This boost to their individual alpha frequency was associated with better performance on cognitive tests.
These findings suggest the exciting possibility of flexibly training our brain rhythms to unlock cognitive benefits.
Key Facts:
- Peak “alpha” brainwave frequency correlates with cognitive performance but declines with aging.
- By giving real-time feedback of their alpha frequency, participants learned to increase it over 2 days of practice.
- This alpha boost was linked to enhancements in mental rotation and working memory tests.
- Even sham/placebo feedback improved cognition, suggesting added benefits from directly training alpha rhythms.
What are brain waves?
Our billions of neurons generate oscillating electrical signals that synchronize into brainwaves detectable on the scalp.
Different frequency bands like alpha (~10 Hz), beta (~15-30 Hz), and theta (~4-7 Hz) have been linked to various cognitive states.
Alpha waves are prominent when we’re relaxed yet focused, while beta waves ramp up when we concentrate and theta waves increase when drowsy.
The exact peak alpha frequency varies from person to person, ranging from ~8-13 Hz.
This is why researchers assess each individual’s “individual alpha frequency” or IAF.
Tracking how this personalized brainwave marker changes with aging and mental training gives insight into cognition.
Why Target the Alpha Rhythm?
The IAF declines as we get older, matching worsening performance on cognitive tests.
People with mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s, and other forms of dementia also exhibit lower IAFs.
This indicates the IAF could serve as a neural marker of cognitive health.
Crucially, higher IAFs are associated with benefits in processing speed, working memory, and attention.
So if we could maintain or increase our alpha frequencies as we age, it might buffer against cognitive decline.
This motivated researchers to test whether IAFs can be directly trained through neurofeedback.
Tuning Your Own Brainwaves with Neurofeedback
Neurofeedback training involves measuring a person’s brainwaves in real-time and giving feedback so they can learn to control them.
For example, we can measure alpha waves from electrodes on the scalp and convert them into images, sounds or vibrations that update each second.
Participants then learn which mental strategies modify the feedback signal.
If producing a certain thought makes a bar get bigger on a screen, the person can gradually learn to recreate that brain state through practice.
This allows “self-tuning” of neural activity patterns to boost or suppress specific rhythms.
Increasing Individual Alpha Frequency
An international team of researchers recruited 32 healthy young adults to test IAF neurofeedback training.
They assigned participants randomly to either true neurofeedback or “sham” placebo training.
In the true feedback group, 16 participants saw how different mental activities changed a vibrating motor’s intensity, which represented their IAF in real-time.
This haptic feedback let them intuitively learn how to increase their alpha frequency through mental strategies.
The sham group also received vibrating feedback, but it was unrelated to their own brainwaves.
This placebo condition helped distinguish neurofeedback benefits from simply practicing on cognitive tests.
After a baseline EEG recording, participants performed daily neurofeedback training followed by working memory and mental rotation cognitive tests.
Only the true neurofeedback group increased their IAF by ~0.2 Hz above baseline after training.
The sham group’s alpha rhythms were unchanged.
Cognitive Enhancement from Alpha Brain Wave Neurofeedback
Remarkably, both the true and sham groups improved their reaction times after just 10 total hours of training.
This highlights the benefits of practice effects alone on cognitive tests like these.
But the participants who actually increased their IAFs showed additional mental rotation accuracy gains.
And across all tasks, their overall cognitive enhancement correlated with the degree they boosted their alpha frequency.
This selective cognitive benefit supports the idea that alpha neurofeedback can confer advantages beyond simply practicing the tasks.
It also demonstrates directly training the IAF, rather than just alpha power, can modulate cognition.
The Fast-Track to Higher Brainwaves
These results are exciting because previously it took weeks of IAF neurofeedback training to shift alpha frequencies in the elderly.
But here young adults increased their IAF rapidly over just 2 days.
This suggests we may have untapped potential to voluntarily tune our brainwaves with enough feedback.
The participants’ baseline IAFs also remained higher the morning after training.
So unlike working muscles at the gym, the benefits don’t instantly disappear.
Still, we need longer-term studies to reveal how long IAF increases persist and how much room for growth exists.
Future studies should also confirm the cognitive advantages translate outside the lab into real-world tasks.
And clinical trials will be important to test whether IAF training could help patients with cognitive impairments from aging, ADHD, or brain injury.
Mind Over Matter: Mastering Our Brainwaves
We’re still unraveling the mysteries of exactly how different brain rhythms represent and influence our mental world.
But this research demonstrates that with practice, we can volitionally gain some control over our neural oscillations.
Our brainwaves are not immutable or fixed.
Much like an athlete tuning their muscles in training, we can plasticize our brain’s rhythms toward more optimal patterns.
Alpha neurofeedback training provides a promising way of tapping into this neural flexibility.
With further advances, personally optimizing our brainwaves could offer a route to enhanced cognition and mastery of the mind.
References
- Study: Modulating individual alpha frequency through short-term neurofeedback for cognitive enhancement in healthy young adults
- Authors: Ben-Zheng Li et al. (2023)
