NCT06787248

Real-time Neurofeedback Training of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex Based on Positive Episodic Future Thinking

Self-regulation of the mPFC Using Rt-fMRI NF Training to Enhance Positive Anticipation for Future Events

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 61 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 35 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Randomized active-sham controlled between-subject real-time fMRI neurofeedback trial aiming to modulate activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to improve subjective positive anticipation.

Detailed description

A randomized double-blind sham-controlled between-subject design using real-time fMRI neurofeedback. In a randomized order, a total of 60 healthy subjects will be recruited and assigned (1) experimental group (EG; N=30), which receives real neurofeedback from the left medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), or (2) control group (CG; N=30) which receives sham neurofeedback from the primary motor cortex (M1). Neurofeedback training consists of 1 baseline session without feedback, 4 training sessions with real-time feedback, and and 1 transfer session without feedback. Resting state fMRI will be employed to explore neural effects. Objectives are to determine (1) if subjects in the neurofeedback (NF) group can gain volitional control over the mPFC activation using positive episodic regulation strategy, (2) whether successful increased modulation of the mPFC could enhance positive anticipation for future events and motivation (using the Effort-Expenditure for Reward Task, EEfRT).

Conditions

• Healthy
• Neurofeedback

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
PROCEDURE	real-time fMRI sham-controlled neurofeedback training procedure	real-time fMRI neurofeedback training procedure running on the Turbo Brain voyager (TBV) 4.2 software (Brain Innovation, Maastricht, The Netherlands)

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-01-01
• Primary completion: 2025-05-15
• Completion: 2025-05-30
• First posted: 2025-01-22
• Last updated: 2025-08-29

Locations

1 site across 1 country: China