Music neurofeedback training improves college students' negative emotions and attention status

Abstract

Abstract In psychology, emotions such as anxiety, tension, anger, depression, sadness, and pain are collectively referred to as negative emotions. Such emotional experiences are not positive, and the body will feel uncomfortable, and even affect work and life. The probability of college students suffering from negative emotions is higher than that of other groups, which is a group that needs special attention. Emotion and cognition are closely related. Studies have shown that negative emotions can cause problems such as decreased attention and memory. We used Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), and Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) to evaluate negative emotions, and screened out those with SAS and SDS scores greater than 35 points and PANAS with moderate negative emotions. 50 Yanshan University student subjects with emotional score greater than 20 points. There were 20 subjects for music stimulation test, 20 subjects for neurofeedback training and 10 subjects for control group. The trial lasted for two weeks, 5 days a week, 5 minutes a day. Before the test on the first day and after the test on the last day, neuropsychological scales and attention tests were completed. Before training and after training every day, the EEG signals of the subjects in the resting state were collected. We analyzed the effects of the two intervention methods on the characteristic parameters of brain function, and then analyzed their effects on mood and cognition improvement. In particular, we analyzed differences in laterality of the brain by relative power changes, interhemispheric EEG coherence. The results of neuropsychological scale test and attention evaluation showed that both negative emotion and attention were improved with statistical significance. The change in the control group was not statistically significant. It is noted that the trail has been prospectively registered in ChiCTR on Oct 25, 2022. The trail registration number (TRN) is ChiCTR2101245362.