Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Towards a Pragmatic Approach to a Psychophysiological Unit of Analysis for Mental and Brain Disorders: An EEG-Copeia for Neurofeedback

  • Published:
Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article proposes what we call an “EEG-Copeia” for neurofeedback, like the “Pharmacopeia” for psychopharmacology. This paper proposes to define an “EEG-Copeia” as an organized list of scientifically validated EEG markers, characterized by a specific association with an identified cognitive process, that define a psychophysiological unit of analysis useful for mental or brain disorder evaluation and treatment. A characteristic of EEG neurofeedback for mental and brain disorders is that it targets a EEG markers related to a supposed cognitive process, whereas conventional treatments target clinical manifestations. This could explain why EEG neurofeedback studies encounter difficulty in achieving reproducibility and validation. The present paper suggests that a first step to optimize EEG neurofeedback protocols and future research is to target a valid EEG marker. The specificity of the cognitive skills trained and learned during real time feedback of the EEG marker could be enhanced and both the reliability of neurofeedback training and the therapeutic impact optimized. However, several of the most well-known EEG markers have seldom been applied for neurofeedback. Moreover, we lack a reliable and valid EEG targets library for further RCT to evaluate the efficacy of neurofeedback in mental and brain disorders. With the present manuscript, our aim is to foster dialogues between cognitive neuroscience and EEG neurofeedback according to a psychophysiological perspective. The primary objective of this review was to identify the most robust EEG target. EEG markers linked with one or several clearly identified cognitive-related processes will be identified. The secondary objective was to organize these EEG markers and related cognitive process in a psychophysiological unit of analysis matrix inspired by the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Acknowledgements

AJH’s post-doctoral scholarship was funded by Urgotech.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jean-Arthur Micoulaud-Franchi.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

All the authors declared that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Micoulaud-Franchi, JA., Batail, JM., Fovet, T. et al. Towards a Pragmatic Approach to a Psychophysiological Unit of Analysis for Mental and Brain Disorders: An EEG-Copeia for Neurofeedback. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 44, 151–172 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-019-09440-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-019-09440-4

Keywords

Navigation