Neuroplasticity Intervention, Amygdala and Insula Retraining (AIR), Significantly Improves Overall Health and Functioning Across Various Chronic Conditions. — CFSMEATLAS
Neuroplasticity Intervention, Amygdala and Insula Retraining (AIR), Significantly Improves Overall Health and Functioning Across Various Chronic Conditions.
Bratty, Alexandra J · Integrative medicine (Encinitas, Calif.) · 2023
Quick Summary
This study tested a brain-retraining program called AIR (Amygdala and Insula Retraining) on people with various chronic conditions, including ME/CFS. Participants reported their health and functioning before and after using the program for at least 3 months. The results showed significant improvements in 14 out of 16 conditions studied, suggesting that this brain-focused approach may help people feel better.
Why It Matters
This study explores a novel neuroplasticity-based intervention that proposes a common brain-body mechanism underlying ME/CFS and related conditions, offering a potential new treatment avenue. For ME/CFS patients, these preliminary findings suggest that brain-retraining approaches warrant further rigorous investigation as a possible therapeutic option.
Observed Findings
Participants self-reported significant improvements in overall health and functioning in 14 of 16 chronic conditions tested after 3+ months of AIR use (p<.001 for most).
Of the 14 significant findings, 11 demonstrated large effect sizes and 3 demonstrated medium effect sizes.
Two additional conditions approached statistical significance (p=.039 and p=.005).
Improvement was observed across diverse chronic conditions including ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, long COVID, Lyme disease, MCAS, and mold illness.
Inferred Conclusions
AIR may be an effective intervention for improving health and functioning across multiple chronic conditions believed to share a common brain-body mechanism.
The consistent improvements across diverse conditions support the hypothesis that similar neural network dysfunction may underlie various functional somatic disorders.
AIR is a viable method for clinical consideration in treating chronic conditions.
Remaining Questions
Do the self-reported improvements persist long-term, and how do they compare to objective biomarkers of disease?
How does AIR compare in effectiveness to standard care or other interventions in randomized controlled trials?
What specific neural mechanisms are responsible for improvements, if the intervention is indeed effective?
What This Study Does Not Prove
This study does not prove that AIR causes improvements in these conditions—it only shows that people self-reported feeling better after using the program. The lack of a control group, blinding, and objective outcome measures means we cannot rule out placebo effects, natural recovery, or other confounding factors. Larger randomized controlled trials are needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.
Tags
Symptom:Cognitive DysfunctionPainFatigue
Phenotype:Long COVID Overlap
Method Flag:Weak Case DefinitionNo ControlsSmall SampleExploratory OnlyMixed Cohort