The Fallacy of Sham-Controlled Neurofeedback Trials: A Reply to Thibault and Colleagues (2018).

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

Who cites it

21 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 46 citations in OpenAlex.

1. Is There Evidence for the Specificity of Closed-Loop Brain Training in the Treatment of Internalizing Disorders? A Systematic Review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022
   Pooled it
2. How standardized are "standard protocols"? Variations in protocol and performance evaluation for slow cortical potential neurofeedback: A systematic review.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2022
   Pooled it
3. A Guide to Literature Informed Decisions in the Design of Real Time fMRI Neurofeedback Studies: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2020
   Pooled it
4. Neurofeedback of Alpha Activity on Memory in Healthy Participants: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2020
   Pooled it
5. Infraslow Closed-Loop Brain Training for Anxiety and Depression (ISAD): A pilot randomised, sham-controlled trial in adult females with internalizing disorders.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2025
   Trial
6. Effects of fMRI neurofeedback of right inferior frontal cortex on inhibitory brain activation in children with ADHD.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024
   Trial
7. Double-Blind, Sham-Controlled Randomized Trial Testing the Efficacy of fMRI Neurofeedback on Clinical and Cognitive Measures in Children With ADHD.The American journal of psychiatry · 2022
   Trial
8. Slow Cortical Potential Versus Live Z-score Neurofeedback in Children and Adolescents with ADHD: A Multi-arm Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial with Active and Passive Comparators.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2022
   Trial
9. Closed-Loop Neurofeedback of α Synchrony during Goal-Directed Attention.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2021
   Trial
10. Yes, I can - maybe … Effects of placebo-related instructions on neuroregulation in children with ADHD.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2020
    Trial
11. Spontaneous Modulation of Alpha Power During a Neurofeedback Session Without Instructions.Psychophysiology · 2026
    Article
12. Subjective regulation success mediates the influence of neurofeedback performance on mood in the absence of training effects.Frontiers in psychology · 2026
    Article
13. Spontaneous Modulation of Standard EEG Frequency Bands During a Neurofeedback-Like Task.Psychophysiology · 2025
    Article
14. Setting Factors Associated With Licensed Psychotherapists' Interest in the Implementation of Electroencephalogram Neurofeedback Into Practice.Practice innovations (Washington, D.C.) · 2025
    Article
15. Applications of Alpha Neurofeedback Processes for Enhanced Mental Manipulation of Unfamiliar Molecular and Spatial Structures.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2024
    Article
16. Infraslow closed-loop brain training for anxiety and depression (ISAD): a protocol for a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled pilot trial in adult females with internalizing disorders.Trials · 2022
    Article
17. Home-Based EEG Neurofeedback Intervention for the Management of Chronic Pain.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2022
    Article
18. Source localized infraslow neurofeedback training in people with chronic painful knee osteoarthritis: A randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled feasibility clinical trial.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022
    Article
19. Neurofeedback Learning Is Skill Acquisition but Does Not Guarantee Treatment Benefit: Continuous-Time Analysis of Learning-Curves From a Clinical Trial for ADHD.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021
    Article
20. The Current Evidence Levels for Biofeedback and Neurofeedback Interventions in Treating Depression: A Narrative Review.Neural plasticity · 2021
    Review

Corrections and comments

• Commented on by
  Sham-Controlled Neurofeedback Trials in ADHD are Appropriately Using Operant Conditioning.2024

Authors and funding

3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

Abstract

PubMed holds no abstract for this paper.

Indexed as