Efficacy of bio- and neurofeedback for depression: a meta-analysis

<p>Efficacy of bio- and neurofeedback for<br> depression: a meta-analysis</p> <p>Background. For many years, biofeedback and neurofeedback have been implemented in the<br> treatment of depression. However, the effectiveness of these techniques on depressive symptomatology<br> is still controversial. Hence, we conducted a meta-analysis of studies extracted<br> from PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science and Embase.<br> Methods. Two different strings were considered for each of the two objectives of the study:<br> A first group comprising studies patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and a second<br> group including studies targeting depressive symptomatology reduction in other mental or<br> medical conditions.<br> Results. In the first group of studies including patients with MDD, the within-group analyses<br> yielded an effect size of Hedges&rsquo; g = 0.717, while the between-group analysis an effect size of<br> Hedges&rsquo; g = 1.050. Moderator analyses indicate that treatment efficacy is only significant when<br> accounting for experimental design, in favor of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in comparison<br> to non RCTs, whereas the type of neurofeedback, trial design, year of publication,<br> number of sessions, age, sex and quality of study did not influence treatment efficacy. In<br> the second group of studies, a small but significant effect between groups was found<br> (Hedges&rsquo; g = 0.303) in favor of bio- and neurofeedback against control groups. Moderator analyses<br> revealed that treatment efficacy was not moderated by any of the sociodemographic and<br> clinical variables.<br> Conclusions. Heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback and neurofeedback are associated with<br> a reduction in self-reported depression. Despite the fact that the field has still a large room for<br> improvement in terms of research quality, the results presented in this study suggests that both<br> modalities may become relevant complementary strategies for the treatment of MDD and<br> depressive symptomatology in the coming years.</p>