Improving Selective Attention in Healthy Adults Through SMR Neurofeedback: Electrophysiological and Behavioral Evidence

/Objectives: Neurofeedback (NFB) modulates electroencephalographic activity and has been proposed to enhance cognitive performance. This study investigated the effects of repeated sensorimotor rhythm (SMR; 12-15 Hz) neurofeedback training on selective auditory attention in healthy adults aged 25-40 years, utilizing both electrophysiological and behavioral assessments.

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No actionable change for audiology clinical practice; this study is in healthy adults using a brain-training approach not yet validated for hearing or auditory attention rehabilitation in clinical settings.

If SMR neurofeedback reliably improves selective attention, it could hold future interest for auditory rehabilitation contexts where attention plays a key role, such as hearing in noise; however, clinical translation remains distant.

1. 01SMR (sensorimotor rhythm) neurofeedback training improved selective attention in healthy adults.
2. 02Both EEG (brain-wave) and behavioral performance measures showed improvement after training.
3. 03All participants were healthy adults — findings cannot yet be extrapolated to hearing-impaired populations.
4. 04Attention is a key factor in speech understanding in noise, making this tangentially relevant to audiology.
5. 05Multiple training sessions were used, suggesting a dose-dependent effect worth further investigation.

PMID

42651153

DOI

10.3390/brainsci16080843.

Journal

Brain Sciences

Publication type

research_article

Evidence level

2b

Population

Healthy adults

Intervention

Repeated SMR neurofeedback training sessions

Comparator

Pre-training baseline (within-subjects) or sham/control condition