Effectiveness of Neurofeedback in Drug Use Craving and Attentional Bias to Drug-related Stimulants in Substance Abusers

Drug addiction is one of the most important health issues due to the difficulty of achieving sustainable treatment and the presence of high relapse rates despite detoxification and psychological interventions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of neurofeedback in the rate of craving and attentional bias to drug-related stimulants among substance abusers. A quasi-experimental research design with random assignment in experimental and control groups with pre-test and post-test was employed in this study. A total of 40 opiate-dependent patients who had presented to methadone treatment centers were selected as participants through random sampling. After responding to Desires for Drug Questionnaire (DDQ) and Stroop Selective Attention Test, the participants were randomly assigned to two groups, namely experimental group (20 subjects) and control group (20 subjects). Neurofeedback treatment sessions consisted of 20 sessions where each session lasted 30 minutes. Then both groups responded to the above questionnaires again. Data analysis was conducted by running covariance analysis and it was shown that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control groups regarding the amount of craving and attentional bias in the post-test phase. According to the current research findings, it seems that neurofeedback can reduce the rate of craving and attentional bias to substance symptoms among substance abusers. Therefore, it is recommended that therapists use neurofeedback as an intervention method for the treatment of addicts.