ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2019
Regulation of arousal via online neurofeedback improves human performance in a demanding sensory-motor task.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 48 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Caffeinated Brain Part 1: The Effects of Caffeine on Event-Related Potentials (ERPs)-A Systematic and Mechanistic Review.Nutrients · 2026Pooled it
- Theta/Beta Ratio Neurofeedback Effects on Resting and Task-Related Theta Activity in Children with ADHD.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2025Trial
- Training the brain to time: the effect of neurofeedback of SMR-Beta1 rhythm on time perception in healthy adults.Experimental brain research · 2022Trial
- Neural and autonomic predictors of future listening errors.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- [Research on auditory neurofeedback technology and its multi-disciplinary applications].Sheng wu yi xue gong cheng xue za zhi = Journal of biomedical engineering = Shengwu yixue gongchengxue zazhi · 2026Review
- Article
- Reducing aggressive behavior in forensic inpatients with virtual reality aggression prevention training-intellectual disability: a pilot study.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- A novel integrated training program for police pistol use across multiple operational scenarios: a randomized controlled trial of integrated psychological skill.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Adaptive arousal regulation: Pharmacologically shifting the peak of the Yerkes-Dodson curve by catecholaminergic enhancement of arousal.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Real-Time Monitoring of Physiological and Postural Parameters to Evaluate Human Reactions in Virtual Reality for Safety Training.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- EEG-based brain-computer interface enables real-time robotic hand control at individual finger level.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Modulating cortical excitability and cortical arousal by pupil self-regulation.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Physiologically informed predictability of a teammate's future actions forecasts team performance.iScience · 2025Article
- Comparative effectiveness of electroencephalogram-neurofeedback training of 3-45 frequency band on memory in healthy population: a network meta-analysis with systematic literature search.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2025Review
- Neurotechnology for enhancing human operation of robotic and semi-autonomous systems.Frontiers in robotics and AI · 2025Review
- The vagus nerve: a cornerstone for mental health and performance optimization in recreation and elite sports.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Non-Invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces: State of the Art and Trends.IEEE reviews in biomedical engineering · 2025Review
- Article
- Mental workload assessment by monitoring brain, heart, and eye with six biomedical modalities during six cognitive tasks.Frontiers in neuroergonomics · 2024Article
- Enhancing Arousal Level Detection in EEG Signals through Genetic Algorithm-based Feature Selection and Fast Bit Hopping.Journal of medical signals and sensors · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Our state of arousal can significantly affect our ability to make optimal decisions, judgments, and actions in real-world dynamic environments. The Yerkes-Dodson law, which posits an inverse-U relationship between arousal and task performance, suggests that there is a state of arousal that is optimal for behavioral performance in a given task. Here we show that we can use online neurofeedback to shift an individual's arousal from the right side of the Yerkes-Dodson curve to the left toward a state of improved performance. Specifically, we use a brain-computer interface (BCI) that uses information in the EEG to generate a neurofeedback signal that dynamically adjusts an individual's arousal state when they are engaged in a boundary-avoidance task (BAT). The BAT is a demanding sensory-motor task paradigm that we implement as an aerial navigation task in virtual reality and which creates cognitive conditions that escalate arousal and quickly results in task failure (e.g., missing or crashing into the boundary). We demonstrate that task performance, measured as time and distance over which the subject can navigate before failure, is significantly increased when veridical neurofeedback is provided. Simultaneous measurements of pupil dilation and heart-rate variability show that the neurofeedback indeed reduces arousal. Our work demonstrates a BCI system that uses online neurofeedback to shift arousal state and increase task performance in accordance with the Yerkes-Dodson law.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.