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Keywords: neurofeedback, LORETA, Z-score training, traumatic brain injury, infraslow fluctuation neurofeedback
Traumatic brain injuries constitute significant health and societal problems which can be ameliorated with some recent developments in neurofeedback. The field of neurofeedback has evolved from single channel to multiple-site training, and with LORETA Z-score training, deeper levels of the brain can reached. Neurofeedback for traumatic brain injury patients may provide improvements never before possible.
Introduction
Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) constitute a major health problem, since there are from one to two million TBIs in this country every year, mostly from car accidents and falls (Corrigan, Selassie, & Orman, 2010; Novo-Olivas, 2014). The majority, probably 80%, are mild brain injuries (Bernad, 1988; Hoffman, Stockdale, Hicks, & Schwaninger, 1995); therefore, these would be the most likely candidates for neurofeedback treatment. But this number also might be underestimated, since many of these injuries may go unreported (Powell, Ferraro, Dikman, Temkin, & Bell, 2008). It is estimated that it costs some $60 billion dollars per year for this substantial public health problem (Corrigan et al., 2010).
Other causes of brain injury have been discussed by Thornton (2014). Concussions in football have a 72% chance of happening in every NFL football game. Of the veterans returning from Iraq, an estimated 22% have had a TBI, which totals about 308,000 soldiers. Brewer et al. (2010) estimated that there are 1.25 million emergency room (ER) visits related to brain injuries each year, but also pointed out that an estimated 56% of the TBIs are not diagnosed in the ER. Added to this, Langlois, Rutland-Brown, & Wald (2006) estimated that there were 3.8 million sports-related concussions yearly of all ages (including children's sports injuries) in the USA.
Mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) is usually defined as having a loss of consciousness of less than 20 minutes, or a posttraumatic amnesia of less than 24 hours (meaning an altered state of consciousness, such as confusion or disorientation, and the time from the accident until there is reliable and consistent memory). These indicators of severity, however, do not predict the outcome of enduring cognitive deficits in the patient (Zasler & Katz, 2013). In this paper, MTBIs will be the primary focus. Severe cases of brain injury are usually not treated with neurofeedback,...