Training the brain to improve emotional awareness and self-regulation skills

David Soto

BCBL - Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, Spain

Around one in ten people experience particular difficulties in identifying, describing and regulating their emotions. This condition, known as alexithymia, is associated with depression, anxiety and autism. Few evidence-based interventions exist to improve emotional awareness, and the underlying brain mechanisms remain unclear. This project aims to investigate how the brain represents emotions in people with different levels of alexithymia and develop new protocols to modulate emotion.

A research team with expertise in neuroscience, psychology, machine learning and mental health research will use brain-computer interfaces to identify patterns of brain activity associated with different emotional states in real time. These patterns will then be used to train participants to reinforce brain activity linked to improved emotional processing through neurofeedback, even without being consciously aware of the emotion being targeted. Finally, the team will explore how to make this approach more portable and affordable.

The project could provide the basis for personalised interventions that complement psychotherapy and help people improve emotional awareness and self-regulation in both clinical and community settings.

Personalized Decoded Neurofeedback to Enhance Emotion Processing in Alexithymia

€499,650.00