Anxiety, EEG patterns, and neurofeedback

This chapter briefly reviews definitions of anxiety and anxiety disorders, identifies specific EEG and QEEG patterns which in clinical practice and/or research have been found to be correlates of some anxiety disorders, and cites neurofeedback protocols for treating anxiety as suggested by experienced clinicians and/or by research. Augmenting procedures such as breathwork, muscle relaxation, heart rate variability training, AVE, EMDR, cognitive behavioral therapy, and other psychotherapy forms are given only a brief mention. That anxiety states are complex disorders is obvious, not only because of the multiple patterns of differences displayed by QEEG, fMRI and SPECT, but also due to the disparate manifest emotional/behavioral symptoms that may or may not correlate with the above physiological measurements. Despite the diversity of EEG anxiety patterns, clusters of them often occur, constituting an emotional/behavioral clinical picture such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. There are some QEEG patterns found by research, and/or through clinical experience, to be associated with general or specific anxiety disorders, and there are some neurofeedback training protocols rather consistently cited by expert clinicians as efficacious for treatment of these disorders. For example, given a fairly clear anxiety-related behavioral state, or given one or more specific EEG/QEEG pattern, attention to increasing posterior alpha power and/or decreasing beta power in frontal or temporal sites is a commonly reported approach.