In the early 1990s, researchers in Australia were among the first to explore the question of how long neurofeedback training lasts. They assembled a group of 10-year-old boys with a diagnosis of ADHD and provided them with 40 sessions of neurofeedback. Pre- and post-training testing showed that all the boys made great strides in their ability to focus on tasks.

One year later, the researchers re-tested the boys to find out how much backsliding occurred over the course of a year. They were surprised to discover that after 12 months, every one of the boys not only held on to their gains, they performed even better on attention tests than they did in the immediate aftermath of their 40 sessions.

This led researchers and practitioners alike to believe that neurofeedback is a form of learning for the brain. For example, when one first learns to read, sight words are among the first words memorized:  rat, sat, mat, hat, cat. As one continues to practice reading, the reader does not forget those learned words and instead builds on the learning, figuring out more sight words, then two-syllable words, and so on. A typically developing reader makes progress; she does not forget those first words unless there is some kind of emergency that interferes with memory and continued learning.

We believe that it is similar for neurofeedback—people hold on to their gains once they have finished training.

Finish Training. Don’t Stop too Soon.

The assumption behind this, though, is that a person has finished training.

Researchers over the past decade or so has performed testing with fewer and fewer neurofeedback sessions, reporting back that after eight or ten sessions, some sort of change occurs. Unfortunately, that has led to a similar trend over time among practitioners who assert that a trainee can be finished with all neurofeedback training in just a few sessions. The problem with that is that these people have just begun to experience changes and have not necessarily fully integrated them. This means that they require what the field is calling “tune-ups” of 10-20 sessions to re-set the gains that were previously made.

I disagree with this approach. I believe that training should continue until the learning is entrenched and the person can hang on to their changes. As a general rule, I tell any prospective client to plan to work with me around 40 sessions. If it takes less than that, we will stop, because I do not believe that anyone should do more training than is necessary. My goal is to ensure that you don’t need to come back for additional training or “tune-ups” while also ensuring that my clients do not waste time and money by doing training for too long.

Does this work? Does a full course of training lead to a lifetime of benefits? The scientific literature is mostly silent on this, but in my almost 20 years of practice, I have only had a few people who needed to come back for additional training. Those individuals had significant issues, such as experimentation with street drugs, complications from surgical anesthesia, uncontrolled thyroid issues (stable thyroid conditions seem to be fine), and autism. I have also either contacted or been contacted by a few former clients. These individuals have all reported that they held on to the gains they made.

This does not mean that the effects of neurofeedback last forever. They might! But, no one really knows for sure how long results last, and anyone who asserts that they are permanent is missing the nuance that we just don’t know, because neurofeedback hasn’t been popularly used for that long.

What I can say for sure is that when one finishes a full course of neurofeedback, the results typically last for a very long time.