Alpha neurofeedback improves the maintaining ability of alpha activity

The effects of α-neurofeedback (ANF) on electroencephalographic α-activity were investigated. Each session consisted of a 2.5-min eye-opened state and 17.5-min of ANF, which was divided into 16 1.25-min bins. Alpha amplitudes were gradually increased as the session was repeated. The maximum value at the start of ANF gradually decreased as time passed, but the slowdown of α-activity during each session was decreased as the session was repeated. The correlation between α-activity at the end of ANF and at the following session's eye-opened state was highly significant. These results showed that ANF enhances the ability of α-activity to maintain itself rather than the increase of α-amplitude during intrasession and that the maintained α-activity during former training remained until the next session.