No Evidence of tACS-Primed Enhancement of Alpha Neurofeedback
- 1University of Glasgow
Abstract
Neurofeedback shows promise as a clinical intervention, but its effectiveness is hindered by variability of response across individuals. One factor influencing neurofeedback success may be endogenous brain states, particularly the baseline power within target frequency bands. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) provides a potential mechanism to modulate these baseline frequency bands. This study explored whether tACS could effectively enhance participants' ability to gain neurofeedback control by increasing lateralised posterior alpha activity prior to engagement in a covert spatial attention-based neurofeedback task. Participants completed three counterbalanced sessions: 1) alpha tACS and active neurofeedback, 2) alpha tACS and sham neurofeedback, 3) gamma (40Hz) tACS and active neurofeedback. Neurofeedback performance was assessed via lateralised posterior alpha power shifts and Posner task reaction times. We identified no difference in reaction times or lateralised alpha power shifts across conditions. While participants reliably demonstrated lateralised posterior alpha patterns, consistent with the covert spatial attention neurofeedback protocol, no advantage of active neurofeedback over sham was observed. The lack of significant effects underscores the need for further rigorous tACS studies to identify the parameters essential for successful neural entrainment, and to evaluate its potential in enhancing neurofeedback efficacy.
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BibTeX
@misc{turner2026evidence,
title = {{No Evidence of tACS-Primed Enhancement of Alpha Neurofeedback}},
author = {C. Turner and L. James and M. Bakhtiari and G. Learmonth and A. Fracasso and A. Vuckovic},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.29.755297},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.29.755297v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - No Evidence of tACS-Primed Enhancement of Alpha Neurofeedback
AU - C. Turner
AU - L. James
AU - M. Bakhtiari
AU - G. Learmonth
AU - A. Fracasso
AU - A. Vuckovic
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/29
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.29.755297
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.29.755297v1
AB - Neurofeedback shows promise as a clinical intervention, but its effectiveness is hindered by variability of response across individuals. One factor influencing neurofeedback success may be endogenous brain states, particularly the baseline power within target frequency bands. Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) provides a potential mechanism to modulate these baseline frequency bands. This study explored whether tACS could effectively enhance participants' ability to gain neurofeedback control by increasing lateralised posterior alpha activity prior to engagement in a covert spatial attention-based neurofeedback task. Participants completed three counterbalanced sessions: 1) alpha tACS and active neurofeedback, 2) alpha tACS and sham neurofeedback, 3) gamma (40Hz) tACS and active neurofeedback. Neurofeedback performance was assessed via lateralised posterior alpha power shifts and Posner task reaction times. We identified no difference in reaction times or lateralised alpha power shifts across conditions. While participants reliably demonstrated lateralised posterior alpha patterns, consistent with the covert spatial attention neurofeedback protocol, no advantage of active neurofeedback over sham was observed. The lack of significant effects underscores the need for further rigorous tACS studies to identify the parameters essential for successful neural entrainment, and to evaluate its potential in enhancing neurofeedback efficacy.
ER -