Neurofeedback

This study will test the hypotheses that adolescent with repetitive negative thinking who at at-risk for serious mental illness will show greater default mode network (DMN) connectivity than healthy controls, at-risk adolescents will show greater changes in DMN connectivity than healthy controls, and that a longer session of mindfulness based neurofeedback will lead to greater reduction in DMN connectivity. To do so, 50 adolescents with elevated repetitive negative thinking and 50 matched healthy control participants will be enrolled into a double-blind randomized clinical trial of a session of mindfulness training with either active mindfulness-basde neurofeedback or sham mindfulness-based neurofeedback.

Randomized active-sham controlled between-subject real-time fMRI neurofeedback trial aiming to modulate activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to improve subjective negative anticipation.

The present study aims to employ real-time functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) neurofeedback training in combination with cognitive reappraisal strategies for regulating negative emotions in healthy individuals. Participants will complete: * Cognitive reappraisal training with either real neurofeedback or sham feedback. * Questionnaires at pre- and post- training timepoints * A cold-pressor test at the end of the training It is hypothesized that combining real-time fNIRS neurofeedback and cognitive reappraisal training will enhance emotion regulation in healthy individuals: 1. Increased neural activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) region of the brain will be significantly higher in the real neurofeedback group after training compared to the sham feedback group. 2. Real-time fNIRS-guided upregulation of the PFC will enhance emotion regulation during exposure to negative stimuli/scenes across the training runs. 3. The effects of fNIRS neurofeedback training will extend to influence emotion regulation in a cold-pressor test administered post-training, wherein individuals in the real neurofeedback group demonstrate better regulation of stress and pain induced by the task.

This project will examine whether individuals can be trained, using real-time feedback about brain function during neuroimaging, to effectively remove thoughts from mind by providing them with a sense of what it feels like to successfully remove a thought.