RESoNATE · Restoring Emotional Stability through Neurofeedback and AI for Transformative Empowerment

Emotion regulation (ER) is the key to mental well-being. Disruptions in the brain ER circuitry is a transdiagnostic mechanism underpinning a wide spectrum of affective disorders that contribute to the mental health economic burden of 600 billion euros annually in Europe. This project focuses on Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), predicted to become the leading cause of global disability by 2030. Conventional treatment is ineffective for approximately 40-60% of patients, underscoring the crucial need for innovative therapeutic approaches. In this context, neurofeedback (NF) on ER with functional magnetic resonance imaging has emerged as a promising tool for the treatment of MDD in research settings. NF is a training that enables people to regulate their brain activity by providing real-time feedback on specific brain patterns, in this case on brain areas involved in ER. To bridge the gap between clinical practice and academic research, RESoNATE will validate the clinical effectiveness of an electroencephalography (EEG) NF protocol targeting ER circuitry. Going beyond the current state of the art, we will conduct a placebo-controlled study involving 72 MDD patients, stratified into NF, sham-NF(placebo), and control groups. A collaboration with the National Kaohsiung Medical University (Taiwan) will add a second NF dataset of 60 subjects. The second goal entails advancing the validation of novel deep learning algorithms for EEG time-series data analysis and testing generalization to different cultural datasets, deploying them to predict the success of NF—a key challenge within the field. By incorporating a startup into the project, we will explore the industrial potential of this research. As such, through RESoNATE and its objectives psychiatrists, psychologists, AI experts, and industrial innovators will come together to advance mental health interventions and explore the boundaries of state-of-the-art AI methods, unlocking new research avenues and market opportunities.