The effect of beta/alpha neurofeedback training on imitating brain activity patterns in visual artists

Abstract

Finding differences between the brain signals of professional visual artists and non-artists during mental imagery of four paintings brought up the idea of using neurofeedback to resemble the patterns of the brain activity of non-artists to those of professional visual artists. To this end, the protocol for increasing the beta band activity and inhibiting the alpha band activity in channel T5, was utilized to train 12 non-artist subjects (7 subjects in the experimental group and 5 subjects in the sham group). To train the brain activity of the subjects, the fuzzy adaptive neurofeedback training procedure was used in which a variable scoring index and a mental fatigue index were defined to determine the success rate of the subjects and to discontinue training if the subjects be influenced by mental fatigue; respectively. Auditory feedback and visual feedback were employed to encourage the subjects. After ten neurofeedback training sessions, the relative low beta power in the experimental group during the visualization of four paintings significantly increased although the relative alpha power declined in this group. No variations were also observed in the beta and alpha band activities in the sham group. Besides, there was no significant changes in the eyes open baseline EEG signals in subjects in both study groups. Considering the variations in the brain activity of the subjects in the experimental group during mental imagery, it was likely that the use of the proposed training procedure could improve mental imagery skills and enhance the performance of novice visual artists.