Published online September 21, 2026, in NMR in Biomedicine, this study introduces real-time functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy neurofeedback. Thirty healthy adults were randomized to accurate or random feedback in the first experiment.
What changed with feedback Participants completed 30 trials using self-selected mental strategies. The accurate-feedback group learned to raise an occipital glutamate-glutamine signal, while the random-feedback group showed no significant change. A second experiment with 15 participants supported learned decreases.
Why this is an interesting step fMRS may add metabolite-related information to neurofeedback methods based on EEG or blood-oxygen signals. The result supports a new measurement and training approach, not a treatment claim.
The important boundary This was a small study in healthy young adults, using one occipital region. The authors note possible parallel blood-oxygen changes, motion and preprocessing limitations. The decrease experiment reused nine participants and did not include a parallel random-feedback group.
Source and disclosure Full text checked. Supported by the Julitta und Richard Müller Stiftung and the German Research Foundation; the authors declared no conflicts. Prepared with AI assistance and source-checked September 24, 2026.