IMR Press / JIN / Volume 20 / Issue 2 / DOI: 10.31083/j.jin2002047
Open Access Case Report
Cognitive rehabilitation in a case of traumatic brain injury using EEG-based neurofeedback in comparison to conventional methods
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1 Faculty of Experimental Sciences, Francisco de Vitoria University, 28223 Madrid, Spain
2 Brain Damage Unit, Hospital Beata María Ana, 28007 Madrid, Spain
3 Neural and Cognitive Engineering Group, Centre for Automation and Robotics, Spanish National Research Council, 28500 Arganda del Rey, Spain
4 Basic Psychology II Department, UNED, Madrid 28040, Spain; Brain Damage Unit, Hospital Beata María Ana, 28007 Madrid, Spain
*Correspondence: p.romero.prof@ufv.es (Juan Pablo Romero)
J. Integr. Neurosci. 2021, 20(2), 449–457; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.jin2002047
Submitted: 26 March 2021 | Revised: 12 April 2021 | Accepted: 23 April 2021 | Published: 30 June 2021
Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Abstract

Severe traumatic brain injury residual cognitive impairments significantly impact the quality of life. EEG-based neurofeedback is a technique successfully used in traumatic brain injury and stroke to rehabilitate cognitive and motor sequelae. There are not individualized comparisons of the effects of EEG-based neurofeedback versus conventional neuropsychological rehabilitation. We present a case study of a traumatic brain injury subject in whom eight sessions of a neuropsychological rehabilitation protocol targeting attention, executive functions, and working memory as compared with a personalized EEG-based neurofeedback protocol focused on the electrodes and bands that differed from healthy subjects (F3, F1, Fz, FC3, FC1, and FCz), targeting the inhibition of theta frequency band (3 Hz−7 Hz) in the same number of sessions. Quantitative EEG and neuropsychological testing were performed. Clear benefits of EEG-based neurofeedback were found in divided and sustained attention and several aspects related to visuospatial skills and the processing speed of motor-dependent tasks. Correlative quantitative EEG changes justify the results. EEG-based neurofeedback is probably an excellent complementary technique to be considered to enhance conventional neuropsychological rehabilitation.

Keywords
Traumatic brain injury
Neurorehabilitation
Cognition
Neurofeedback
Virtual reality
Quantitative electroencephalography
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