Abstract
Research on operant control of brain potentials is reviewed. From single-unit firing and spontaneous EEG activity to event-related potentials such as sensory and pain evoked potentials, and slow potential shifts, most of the aspects of electrical brain activity have been investigated. Results produced by conditioning of spontaneous EEG oscillations (alpha and theta) dampened the early enthusiasm: e.g., no increase above baseline levels could be achieved and no reliable behavioral effects became manifest. Evidence accumulates, however, that operant conditioning of the sensorimotor rhythm (12–15 Hz) may lead to successful self-regulation and that epileptic patients may profit from the training. First steps in the conditioning of brainstem, as well as pain evoked potentials suggest that self-regulation of EPs can be achieved by adequate biofeedback procedures. If some of the observed behavioral effects prove to be stable, the therapeutic usefulness seems to be within reach. A comparable progress has been achieved for the operant control of slow potentials (DC-shifts across seconds). Biofeedback procedures have been used successfully as a scientific tool to achieve systematic variations on a psychological level and to record psychological covariations. This method may provide insights into the behavioral meaning of electrical brain activity.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bauer, H. (1984). Regulation of slow brain potentials affects task performance. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior. Heidelberg: Springer.
Bauer, H., & Lauber, W. (1979). Operant conditioning of steady potential shifts in man.Biofeedback and Self-Regulation, 4 145–154.
Bauer, R. H. (1976). Short term memory: EEG alpha correlates and the effect of increased alpha.Behavioral Biology, 17 435.
Beatty, J. (1973).Self-regulation as an aid to human effectiveness (Annual Progress Report under Contract N00014-70-C-0350, submitted to San Diego State University Foundation). Los Angeles: UCLA.
Beatty, J. & O'Hanlon, J. (1979). Operant control of posterior theta rhythms and vigilance performance: Repeated treatments and transfer of training. In N. Birbaumer & H. Kimmel (Eds.),Biofeedback and self-regulation Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Bird, B. L., Newton, F. A., Sheer, D. E., & Ford, M. R. (1978a). Biofeedback training of 40-Hz EEG in humans.Biofeedback and Self-Regulation, 3 1–12.
Bird, B. L., Newton, F. A., Sheer, D. E., & Ford, M. R. (1978b). Behavioral and electroencephalographic correlates of 40-Hz EEG biofeedback training in humans.Biofeedback and Self-Regulation, 3 13–28.
Chernigovskaya, N. (1984). Biofeedback control in epilepsy and neuroses. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior. Heidelberg: Springer.
Connor, W. H., & Lang, P. J. (1969). Cortical slow-wave and cardiac rate responses in stimulus orientation and reaction time conditions.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 82 310–320.
Elbert, T. (1978). Biofeedback langsamer kortikaler Potentiale. Munich: Minerva.
Elbert, T., Birbaumer, N., Lutzenberger, W., & Rockstroh, B. (1979). Biofeedback of slow cortical potentials: Self regulation of central autonomic patterns. In N. Birbaumer & H. D. Kimmel (Eds.),Biofeedback and self-regulation. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Elbert, T., Lutzenberger, W., Rockstroh, B., & Birbaumer, N. (1983). When regulation of slow brain potentials fails — a contribution to the psychophysiology of perceptual aberration and anhedonia.Archives of Biological Psychiatry, 13 98–106.
Elbert, T., Rockstroh, B., Lutzenberger, W., & Birbaumer, N. (1980a). Biofeedback of slow cortical potentials.Journal of Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 48 293–301.
Elbert, T., Rockstroh, B., Lutzenberger, W., & Birbaumer, N. (1980b). Biofeedback langsamer kortikaler Potentiale. In H. D. Roesler, J. Ott, & E. Richter-Heinrich (Eds.),Neuropsychologische Probleme der klinischen Psychologie. Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften.
Fetz, E. E. (1969). Operant conditioning of cortical unit activity.Science, 163 955–958.
Fetz, E. E., & Baker, M. A. (1973). Operantly conditioned patterns of precentral unit activity and correlated responses in adjacent cells and contralateral muscles.Journal of Neurophysiology, 36 179–204.
Fetz, E. E., & Finocchio, D. V. (1975). Correlations between activity of motor cortex cells and arm muscle during operantly conditioned response patterns.Experimental Brain Research, 23 217–240.
Finley, W. (1984). Biofeedback of very early potentials from the brain stem. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior. Heidelberg: Springer.
Kamiya, J. (1969). Operant control of the EEG alpha rhythm and some of its reported effects on consciousness. In Tart (Ed.), New York: Wiley.
Lawrence, G. H., & Johnson, L. C. (1977). Biofeedback and performance. In G. Schwartz & J. Beatty (Eds.),Biofeedback: Theory and research. New York: Academic Press.
Loveless, N. E., & Sanford, J. A. (1974). Slow potential correlates of preparatory set.Biological Psychology, 1 303–314.
Lubar, J. F. (1982). EEG operant conditioning in severe epileptics: Controlled multidimensional studies. In L. White & B. Tursky (Eds.),Clinical biofeedback. New York: Guilford Press.
Lubar, J. (1984). Applications of operant conditioning of the EEG for the management of epileptic seizures. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior. Heidelberg: Springer.
Lutzenberger, W., Birbaumer, N., Elbert, T., Rockstroh, B., Bippus, W., & Breidt, R. (1980). Selfregulation of slow cortical potentials in normal subjects and patients with frontal lobe lesions. In H. H. Kornhuber & L. Deecke (Eds.),Motivation, motor and sensory processes of the brain. Electrical potentials, behavior and clinical use. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Lutzenberger, W., Birbaumer, N., & Steinmetz, P. (1976). Simultaneous biofeedback of heart rate and frontal EMG as a pretraining for the control of EEG theta activity.Biofeedback and Self-Regulation 1 395–410.
Lutzenberger, W., Birbaumer, N., & Wildgruber, C. (1975). An experiment on the feedback of the theta activity of the human EEG.European Journal Behav. Anal. Mod., 2 119–126.
Lutzenberger, W., Elbert, T., Rockstroh, B., & Birbaumer, N. (1979). Effects of slow cortical potentials on performance in a signal detection task.International Journal of Neuroscience, 9 175–183.
Lutzenberger, W., Elbert, T., Rockstroh, B., & Birbaumer, N. (1982). Biofeedback of slow cortical potentials and its effects on the performance in mental arithmetic tasks.Biological Psychology, 14 99–111.
Lutzenberger, W., Elbert, T., Rockstroh, B., & Birbaumer, N. (in press). Lateral asymmetries of event related brain potentials during tactile tasks.International Journal of Psychophysiology.
Lynch, J. J., & Paskewitz, D. A. (1971). On the mechanisms of feedback control of human brain wave activity.Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 153 205–217.
Melzack, R., & Perry, C. (1975). Self-regulation of alpha feedback and hypnotic training for the control of chronic pain.Experimental Neurology, 46 452–464.
Mulholland, T. (1962). The electro-encephalogram as an experimental tool in the study of internal attention gradients.Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 24 664–669.
Mulholland, T. (1984). Concepts of control in biofeedback. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer,Self-regulation of the brain and behavior. Heidelberg: Springer.
O'Hanlon, K., & Beatty, J. (1975).EEG theta regulation and radar monitoring performance in a controlled field experiment (Tech. Rep. under Contract N 000 14-70-C-0350, submitted to San Diego State University Foundation), Los Angeles: Human Factors Research and University of California at Los Angeles.
Olds, J. (1965). Operant conditioning of single unit responses. XXII Int. Congress of Physiological Sciences, Lectures, Symposia, Tokyo (pp. 372–380), Amsterdam: Excerpta Medica.
Orne, M. T., Evans, F., Wilson, S., & Paskewitz, D. A. (1975).The potential effectiveness of autoregulation as a technique to increase performance under stress (Final Summary Report under Contract N 000 14-70-C-0350, submitted to San Diego State University Foundation). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Posner, M. (1978).Chronometric explorations of mind. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Rockstroh, B., Elbert, T., Birbaumer, N., & Lutzenberger, W. (1982).Slow brain potentials and behavior. Baltimore: Urban & Schwarzenberg.
Rockstroh, B., Elbert, T., Lutzenberger, W., & Birbaumer, N. (1980). Slow cortical potentials and response speed. In H. H. Kornhuber & L. Deecke (Eds.),Motivation, motor and sensory process of the brain. Electrical potentials, behavior, and clinical use. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Rockstroh, B., Elbert, T., Lutzenberger, W., & Birbaumer, N. (1982b). The effect of slow cortical potentials on response speed.Psychophysiology, 19 211–217.
Rockstroh, B., Elbert, T., Lutzenberger, W., & Birbaumer, N. Operant control of slow brain potentials: A tool in the investigation of the potential's meaning and its relation to attentional dysfunction. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior. Heidelberg: Springer.
Roger, M. (1984). Operant control of evoked potentials: Some comments on the learning characteristics in man and on the conditioning of subcortical responses in the curarized rat. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior. Heidelberg: Springer.
Roger, M., & Galand, G. (1981). Operant conditioning of visual evoked potentials in man.Psychophysiology, 18 477–482.
Rohrbaugh, J., & Gaillard, A. (1983). Sensory and motor aspects of the contingent negative variation. In A. Gaillard & W. Ritter (Eds.),Turtorials in event related potential research: Endogenous contents. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Rosenfeld, J. P. (1977). The meaning of operantly conditioned changes in evoked responses. In G. Schwartz, J. Beatty (Eds.),Biofeedback: Theory and Research. New York: Academic Press.
Rosenfeld, J. P., Dowman, R., Silvia, R., & Heinricher, M. (1984). Operantly controlled somatosensory brain potentials: Specific effects on pain processes. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior. Heidelberg: Springer.
Sheer, D. (1984). Focused arousal, 40-Hz EEG and dysfunction. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior. Heidelberg: Springer.
Skinner, J. E., & Yingling, C. D. (1977). Central gating mechanisms that regulate event-related potentials and behavior. In J. Desmedt (Ed.),Attention, voluntary contraction and event-related cerebral potentials. Basel: Karger.
Stamm, J. (1984). Performance enhancement with cortical negative slow potential shifts in monkey and human. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior. Heidelberg: Springer.
Stamm, J., & Kreder, S. (1979). Minimal brain dysfunction and neurophysiological disorders in hyperkinetic children. In M. Gazzaniga (Ed.),Handbook of behavioral neurobiology (Vol. 2). New York: Plenum Press.
Stamm, J., Rockstroh, B., Elbert, T., Lutzenberger, W., Birbaumer, N., Schlotthe, P. (in preparation). Self-regulation of slow brain potentials in children with attentional problems.
Sterman, M. B. (1982). EEG biofeedback in the treatment of epilepsy: An overview circa 1980. In L. White & B. Tursky (Eds.),Clinical biofeedback New York: Guilford Press.
Sterman, B. (1984). The role of sensorimotor rhythmic EEG activity in the etiology and treatment of generalized motor seizures. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior Heidelberg: Springer.
Walter, W. G., Cooper, R., Aldridge, V., McCallum, W. C., & Winter, A. L. (1964). Contingent negative variation: An electrical sign of sensorimotor association and expectancy in the human brain.Nature, 203 380–385.
Wyler, A. R. (1980). Operant control of CNS activity. In J. S. Lockard, A. A. Ward (Eds.),Epilepsy New York: Raven Press.
Wyler, A. (1984). Operant conditioning of single neurons in monkeys and its theoretical application to EEG conditioning in human epilepsy. In T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger, & N. Birbaumer (Eds.),Self-regulation of the brain and behavior Heidelberg: Springer.
Yates, A. (1980).Biofeedback and modification of behavior New York: Plenum Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rockstroh, B., Birbaumer, N., Elbert, T. et al. Operant control of EEG and event-related and slow brain potentials. Biofeedback and Self-Regulation 9, 139–160 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00998830
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00998830