Effects of One Neurofeedback Session on Relationship between Fear-Of-Pain and Visual Avoidance of Pain

Abstract

Chronic pain is increasingly prevalent and costly and will continue to be with the increasing mean age of America’s population. It is important to identify interventions addressing pain-related biopsychosocial aspects. The purpose of the current study was to examine if a single session of specific neurofeedback (NF) protocols had an effect on subjective fear and physiological fear-avoidance behaviors in relation to pain-related stimuli. Correlational analyses revealed that FPQ-III minor pain scores were negatively associated with total fixation duration while looking at pain-related pictures. One-way ANOVAs revealed differences approaching significance for those trained on Left-Hemisphere NF protocols compared to those in Sham training for total fixation duration, moderate effect sizes were found. Statistically significant group differences were found for those trained on Right-Hemisphere protocols compared to those trained on Left-Hemisphere protocols for first fixation durations. Findings support research that implicates NF training as a neuromodulation technique for the subjective pain experience