Psychology Today: LENS (low energy Neurofeedback system) —Placebo or otherwise?

Legit or not?

From http://ift.tt/2xdtMcn

Quote:

Zoltan Istvan The Transhumanist Philosopher I Tried Direct Neurofeedback and the Results Surprised Me Interview with Direct Neurofeedback Specialist Grant Rudolph Posted Sep 17, 2017 Transhumanism—the movement of using science and technology to improve the human being—covers many different fields of research. There are exoskeleton suits to help the disabled; there are stem cell treatments to cure disease; there are robots and AI to perform human chores. The field is wide open and booming as humanity uses more and more tech in its world. It’s not that often I get to participate directly in these radical technologies, but I did so recently when Grant Rudolph, Clinical Director at Echo Rock Neurotherapy in Mill Valley, California invited me to try his Direct Neurofeedback techniques. Via his computer and EEG wire hookups, Mr. Rudolph echoed my brainwave information back into my head at an imperceptible level. I did two sessions of Direct Neurofeedback. [...]

I see no absolute reason for this to be implausible but I still find myself reticent, based on the Psychology Today article, to accept that this works because, as I see it, this article offers no evidence of this beyond the author's anecdotal impression of having the technique applied to him. While there exists mechanistic reasons to think that direct electrical brain stimulation techniques like [wikiX=transcranial direct current stimulation]transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)[/wikiX] or like [WikiX=transcranial alternating current stimulation]transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS)[/wikiX] may not actually have a direct effect on the brain, as long as it can affect skin receptors (even if below a perceptual threshold), one can still easily accept that a plausible mechanism of action exists. This is, of course, trivially true in the case of a placebo based mechanism of action but I would not consider this, in any real sense, as an example of this technique working (that is, it is exactly what I'd like to be able to rule out or in).

I'd be interested in knowing what peer reviewed, properly double blinded placebo controlled studies show about this technique but I'm not sure I even know how to find them (though I did find one for what appears to be a related technique using what, if I understood it correctly, seems to be some sort of subperceptual visual feedback of some sort). For that matter, I would like to see a better, more detailed explanation of how this technique works (which might not even be possible if it happens to be proprietary).

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