Volitional brain regulation is related to improvements in affective characteristics of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

BackgroundEven though emotions often play a role in neurofeedback (NF) regulation strategies, investigations of the relationship between the induced neuronal changes and improvements in affective domains are scare in electroencephalography-based studies. We thus extend the findings of the first study on slow cortical potential (SCP) NF in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by relating affective changes to whole-brain activity at rest and during regulation. MethodsForty-one male adolescents with ASD were scanned at rest using functional magnetic resonance imaging before and after half of them underwent NF training and half received treatment as usual. Furthermore, parents reported on affective characteristics at both times. The NF group had to alternatingly produce negative and positive SCP during training and was additionally scanned while applying their developed regulation strategies. ResultsWe did not find significant treatment group-by-time interactions in affective or resting-state measures. However, we found increases of resting activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and right inferior temporal gyrus as well as improvements in affective characteristics over both groups. Activation corresponding to SCP differentiation in these regions correlated with the affective improvements. A further correlation was found for Rolandic operculum activation corresponding to positive SCP shifts. There were no significant correlations with the respective achieved SCP regulation during NF training. ConclusionSCP NF in ASD did not lead to superior improvements in neuronal or affective functioning compared to treatment as usual. However, the affective changes might be related to the individual strategies and their corresponding activation patterns as indicated by significant correlations on the whole-brain level but not the achieved SCP regulation. Trial registrationThis clinical trial was registered at drks.de (DRKS00012339) on 20th April, 2017.