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. 2020 Jun 1;143(6):1674-1685.
doi: 10.1093/brain/awaa009.

Consensus on the reporting and experimental design of clinical and cognitive-behavioural neurofeedback studies (CRED-nf checklist)

Tomas Ros  1 Stefanie Enriquez-Geppert  2   3 Vadim Zotev  4 Kymberly D Young  5 Guilherme Wood  6 Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli  7   8 Feng Wan  9 Patrik Vuilleumier  10 François Vialatte  11 Dimitri Van De Ville  12 Doron Todder  13   14 Tanju Surmeli  15 James S Sulzer  16 Ute Strehl  17 Maurice Barry Sterman  18 Naomi J Steiner  19 Bettina Sorger  20 Surjo R Soekadar  21 Ranganatha Sitaram  22 Leslie H Sherlin  23 Michael Schönenberg  24 Frank Scharnowski  25   26 Manuel Schabus  27 Katya Rubia  28 Agostinho Rosa  29 Miriam Reiner  30 Jaime A Pineda  31 Christian Paret  32 Alexei Ossadtchi  33 Andrew A Nicholson  25   26 Wenya Nan  34 Javier Minguez  35 Jean-Arthur Micoulaud-Franchi  36 David M A Mehler  37 Michael Lührs  20 Joel Lubar  38 Fabien Lotte  39 David E J Linden  40 Jarrod A Lewis-Peacock  41 Mikhail A Lebedev  42   43   44 Ruth A Lanius  45 Andrea Kübler  46 Cornelia Kranczioch  47 Yury Koush  48 Lilian Konicar  49 Simon H Kohl  50 Silivia E Kober  6 Manousos A Klados  51 Camille Jeunet  52 T W P Janssen  53 Rene J Huster  54 Kerstin Hoedlmoser  27 Laurence M Hirshberg  55 Stephan Heunis  56 Talma Hendler  57 Michelle Hampson  58 Adrian G Guggisberg  59 Robert Guggenberger  60 John H Gruzelier  61 Rainer W Göbel  20 Nicolas Gninenko  12 Alireza Gharabaghi  60 Paul Frewen  45 Thomas Fovet  62 Thalía Fernández  63 Carlos Escolano  35 Ann-Christine Ehlis  64 Renate Drechsler  65 R Christopher deCharms  66 Stefan Debener  47 Dirk De Ridder  67 Eddy J Davelaar  68 Marco Congedo  69 Marc Cavazza  70 Marinus H M Breteler  71 Daniel Brandeis  65   72 Jerzy Bodurka  73 Niels Birbaumer  74 Olga M Bazanova  75 Beatrix Barth  64 Panagiotis D Bamidis  76 Tibor Auer  77 Martijn Arns  78 Robert T Thibault  79   80
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Consensus on the reporting and experimental design of clinical and cognitive-behavioural neurofeedback studies (CRED-nf checklist)

Tomas Ros et al. Brain. .

Abstract

Neurofeedback has begun to attract the attention and scrutiny of the scientific and medical mainstream. Here, neurofeedback researchers present a consensus-derived checklist that aims to improve the reporting and experimental design standards in the field.

Keywords: checklist; consensus; guidelines; neurofeedback; regulation.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Multiple mechanisms drive the effects of neurofeedback training. Neurofeedback participants may benefit from: (i) the specific neurophysiological process of training a particular brain signal (green). Non-specific factors, including (ii) those unique to the neurofeedback environment (e.g. trainer-participant interaction in a neurotechnology context) (dark blue); and (iii) those that are common across interventions (e.g. all other benefits from engaging in a form of cognitive training as well as the psychosocial and placebo mechanisms related to participating in an experiment) (light blue). (iv) Repetition-related effects (purple). (v) Natural effects, which can be positive (e.g. cognitive development in childhood) or negative (e.g. cognitive decline in older age) (orange). These mechanisms may interact synergistically to create a greater overall effect, interact antagonistically to lessen the total benefit, or combine additively (for a discussion of this topic, see Rothman, 1974; Finnerup et al., 2010). By including control groups, carefully designing experiments, and measuring both brain activity and behaviour, researchers can better estimate the contribution from each of these mechanisms.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Consensus on the reporting and experimental design of clinical and cognitive-behavioural neurofeedback studies (CRED-nf) best practices checklist 2020. An online tool to complete this checklist is available at rtfin.org/CREDnf. Darker shaded boxes represent ‘essential’ checklist items; lightly shaded boxes represent ‘encouraged’ checklist items. We recommend using this checklist in conjunction with the standardized CRED-nf online tool (rtfin.org/CREDnf) and the CRED-nf article, which explains the motivation behind this checklist and provides details regarding many of the checklist items.

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