THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NEUROFEEDBACK ON COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY AND COGNITIVE SELF CONTROL IN SUBSTANCE ABUSERS

Background and Aim : 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 is to investigate the effectiveness of neurofeedback on cognitive flexibility and cognitive self control among substance Users.Methods : This research is a experimental study, in which the subjects were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. These groups were accompanied by pretest, posttest. 40 opiate dependent patients who were referred to methadone treatment centers selected using a random sampling and after completing a cognitive flexibility and cognitive self control Questionnaires, randomly assigned into two experimental (n=20) and control (n=20) groups. The treatment sessions with neurofeedback included 20 sessions 30-min. Then both groups responded to the above questionnaires again. Data were analyzed using analysis of covariance.Results : Analysis of the data using analysis of covariance showed that there is a significant difference between experimental and control groups in the rates of cognitive flexibility in the post-test phase, But there was no significant difference in cognitive self-control between the two groups. Conclusion : The results showed that neurofeedback can increases cognitive flexibility in substance Users but has no significant effect on cognitive self-control. Hence, the recommend psychotherapists to use neurofeedback as an intervention method to treat addicted people.

کلیدواژه ها:

neurofeedback ، cognitive flexibility ، cognitive self-control ، Addiction