The conventional neurofeedback method induces a specific brain condition by monitoring the brain, and has been expected to be applied to the treatment of various psychiatric disorders and behavior change, but the effect is placebo (patient's belief). There was a criticism that it might be (improvement of symptoms).

　The "DecNef method" is a method that combines fMRI and artificial intelligence technology to induce a specific activity pattern in the target brain region.By applying this, a team of researchers Ai Koizumi and others have succeeded in eliminating artificially created fear by rewarding the subject when a brain activity pattern representing the object of fear is detected (2016). Year).Although this study is based on this result, the problem was that the method had to be adjusted for each subject in order to show the fear target to the individual and examine the brain activity, and further stressed the individual.

　This time, in order to eliminate the influence of Brasevo, we adopted a "double-blind method" in which neither the subject nor the experimenter is informed of the content of the experiment on a specific subject.In addition, in the "hyper-alignment method", the brain activity at the time of witnessing the fear target of the subject is estimated from the investigation of the brain activity of dozens of healthy subjects.The fear response was successfully attenuated without causing any pain to the subject by a method in which the reward was given when the brain activity pattern approached the brain activity when looking at the fear target without the person's awareness.

　Based on this achievement, we have already started applied research to PTSD that develops due to extreme fear experience.It also addresses ethical issues.

Paper information:[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America] Towards an unconscious neural reinforcement intervention for common fears