Are there differences in Neurofeedback and biofeedback?
Neurofeedback is EEG biofeedback – it’s just a specialized form of biofeedback. General biofeedback - sometimes called peripheral biofeedback, deals more with relaxation, but also has long been used for stress disorders, migraines and headaches, and more recently incontinence. EEG biofeedback more directly trains changes in brain function. It's used more for psychiatric, psychological and neurological issues.
EEG Biofeedback tends to target issues around behavior, attention, mood and affect regulation, cognitive, learning and memory issues, and neurological issues.
All biofeedback provides physiological data to the individual. General or peripheral biofeedback is more familiar to health professionals than EEG. Often, when someone says neurofeedback, MD's and other health professions assume that you are talking about biofeedback.
General biofeedback includes: EMG/muscle relaxation, GSR/galvanic skin response often associated as an indicator of stress, heart rate variability, temperature (hand warming) and respiration (breathing training. A relatively new application that is highly effective with incontinence problems.
In EEG feedback, as the individual change their EEG, it directly impacts activation and timing. This is thought to have a more direct effect on central nervous system function. EEG Neurofeedback is the fastest growing segment of the biofeedback field. Most biofeedback reduces stress and is relaxing. Neurofeedback provides a more direct impact on brain regulation than other biofeedback modalities. It may require more education to deliver.
Some clinicians - particularly ones who started with peripheral feedback combined hand temperature or EMG training with neurofeedback for certain kinds of problems, particularly stress related issues, pain and addiction problems. Many therapists for a while dropped peripheral measures saying that they made faster progress with neurofeedback by itself than by combining.
However, there is a emerging trend by experienced clinicians to add heart rate variability training, GSR and breathing rate training and others as homework or as an adjunct for clients also doing neurofeedback. the feeling is - they are all methods for self-regulation. All these can help gain balance between the tone of sympathetic and parasympathetic systems.
Obviously, you don't add all these options. But adding in one or two in fact is often reported to be helpful. And though some clinicians have their favorites, there doesn't seem to be clear information on when one would be better considered than another. At times, the choice may be easier based on the individual client profile. For more information on options, click here.
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