Twenty epilepsy patients, ages 15 to 53, with temporal lobe damage were trained with neurofeedback to increase their SMR (11-15 Hz) activity and suppress 0-5 Hz and 20-25 Hz activity over their left sensorimotor cortex. Patients received 30-minute sessions three times a week for six weeks. In addition to decreasing the patients’ frequencies of seizures, neurofeedback training resulted in improved memory performance specific to the brain hemisphere not affected by damage. That is, patients with damage to their left brain hemisphere showed improvement in visual and spatial memory following neurofeedback, and patients with right brain hemisphere damage showed improvement in verbal memory.
Thornton, K.E. (2002). The improvement/rehabilitation of auditory memory functioning with EEG biofeedback. NeuroRehabilitation, 17, 69-80.A study that reviewed case studies on four brain injured patients and one normal patient revealed improvements in auditory memory following neurofeedback training. The improvements ranged from 28% to 134% above and beyond prior memory functioning. Patients’ ages ranged from 29 to 69 years old. Length of treatment and electrode placement varied across patients. This study demonstrated that neurofeedback is an effective tool in rehabilitation of auditory memory in brain injured individuals as well as an aid to improve memory in normal individuals.
Packard, R.C., & Ham, L.P. (1996). EEG biofeedback in the Treatment of Lyme Disease: A case study. Journal of Neurotherapy, 1, 22-31.A case study on a 44 year old male with Lyme Disease demonstrated improvement in memory functioning after 40 sessions of neurofeedback in which the patient learned to increase beta activity and suppress theta activity (electrode placement was at site Cz and then Fz). Initially, the patient reported deficits in short-term memory and “forgetfulness”, both of which improved from treatment. Other areas of functioning in which the patient reported improvement were organizational ability, orientation, emotional regulation, confusion, attention span, concentration, and word fluency.
Thornton, K. (2000). Improvement/rehabilitation of memory functioning with neurotherapy/QEEG biofeedback. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, 15, 1285-1296.This study examines five cases in which memory functioning was improved in two individuals with brain injury (ages 31 and 50), one individual who underwent surgery to control seizures by removing part of the temporal lobe and hippocampus (age 33), and two normal individuals (ages 15 and 11). Respectively, improvements in memory functioning were 168%, 83%, 68%, 138%, and 181% above and beyond prior memory functioning. Number of sessions varied, ranging from 11 to 36. Electrode placement varied across cases. This study demonstrates that neurofeedback successfully improves memory functioning in both clinical patients and normal individuals of various ages.