Alpha-contingent EEG feedback reduces SPECT rCBF variability.

EEG feedback methods, which link the occurrence of alpha to the presentation of repeated visual stimuli, reduce the relative variability of subsequent, alpha-blocking event durations. The temporal association between electro-cortical field activation and regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) led us to investigate whether the reduced variability of alpha-blocking durations with feedback is associated with a reduction in rCBF variability. Reduced variability in the rCBF response domain under EEG feedback control might have methodological implications for future brain-imaging studies. Visual stimuli were randomly presented to seven subjects, contingent upon the occurrence of alpha (alpha-contingent stimulation (ACS)) or alpha-blocking (not-alpha-blocking-contingent stimulation (NACS)) events. We employed a within-subjects design. rCBF was measured from multiple, cortical and sub-cortical regions. The primary dependent variables were the Mean, Standard Deviation and the ratio of Mean/Standard Deviation of: 1) the alpha-blocking response durations and 2) the temporally summated rCBF responses within the Visual Associative regions of interest (ROIs). Additional within-subjects rCBF measures were derived to quantify the variance-reducing effects of ACS across multiple, distributed areas of the brain. Both EEG and rCBF measures demonstrated decreased variability under ACS. This improved control was seen for localized as well as anatomically distributed rCBF measures.