Post-traumatic stress disorder is a condition that affects millions of people worldwide. If you’re dealing with PTSD, you could also develop chronic PTSD, which has persistent, debilitating symptoms that do not respond to conventional treatments.

Challenges in Treatment of PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder consists of four distinct symptom clusters that involve recurrent intrusion of the traumatic event¹:

1. Repetitive trauma-related nightmares
2. Avoidance of reminders/thoughts of the traumatic event
3. Change in cognition and mood associated with the traumatic event
4. Hyperarousal and reactivity

Part of the challenge of treatment is that post-traumatic stress disorder does not look the same for every person, and the symptoms can evolve over time. Fear conditioning is thought to play a role in the development of a prominent fight-or-flight response and dysregulated emotions notable in PTSD.^2,3

What Are the Symptoms of Chronic PTSD?

Those experiencing chronic PTSD may experience certain symptoms. This is not an exhaustive list, but symptoms include:

• Experiencing recurrent, intrusive thoughts and memories related to the trauma
• Experiencing recurrent, distressing dreams related to the trauma
• Withdrawing from other people
• Feeling numb/detached
• Being in a constant negative emotional state
• Getting easily startled
• Being extremely aware of your surroundings and having a hard time relaxing
• Difficulty with sleep
• Difficulty concentrating
• Reckless and self-destructive behaviors

Emerging Treatment for PTSD

Neurofeedback is part of an exciting branch of psychiatry that utilizes specialized technology to gather data from and directly affect areas of the brain involved in mood, emotions, and thinking. Despite impacting deep brain structures, this technology is non-invasive and has few side effects.

Who Should Consider Neurofeedback?

You may be a candidate for neurofeedback if:

• You’ve tried several medications and therapy, and you still have persistent symptoms
• You cannot tolerate medications due to side effects
• You had some initial success with conventional treatments, but after a short time, your symptoms came back

How Does Neurofeedback Work?

Neurofeedback utilizes information from brain areas that process fear and regulate emotions to provide a customized response, allowing the brain to reset and retrain its response to fear. Prism neurofeedback is the only FDA-cleared treatment approved for PTSD. It is the first treatment to specifically target the amygdala, the brain area central to emotional processing and fear conditioning. Deep brainwave activity is monitored using technology that allows surface EEG to generate functional MRI information, providing a multidimensional, real-time picture of what is happening in the amygdala during a stress response.⁴

Many forms of trauma-focused therapy involve repetitive recollection of the traumatic event, which can be painful and emotionally taxing to complete and often leads to discontinuation of treatment. Prism neurofeedback does not require you to revisit or talk about past traumas.

What to Expect at Treatment Sessions

Before treatment begins, you will meet with a psychiatrist for a treatment planning session. A Prism technician will meet with you for pre-training sessions.

Treatment consists of fifteen 45-minute sessions occurring twice weekly. You will sit in a quiet room and wear a soft EEG headset while watching a computer simulation with animated avatars. Prism will read the signal from your headset to measure the activity from your amygdala.

You will develop your own mental strategy during these sessions that will decrease the activity in your amygdala, leading to these avatars sitting and quieting down. This activity is analogous to quieting your symptoms of PTSD. You will then be able to use this same strategy to manage your PTSD symptoms in daily life.

Does Neurofeedback Really Work?

Prism neuromodulation is very effective. A recent multi-center study demonstrated that nearly two-thirds of patients had significant improvement in all symptoms of PTSD after being treated with prism neuromodulation, as measured by the CAPS-5 scale. Sleep was highlighted as a key symptom that improved. Nearly one-third of patients achieved remission, meaning they no longer experienced symptoms that would meet the threshold for diagnosis. Very few patients dropped out of treatment, with 90% of patients completing all 15 sessions, meaning there are few side effects and patients were motivated to continue in treatment because of positive results.⁵

Prism neurofeedback is effective because of the real-time information from the part of the brain thought to be central to the production of PTSD symptoms. Treatment is tailored to the individual and provides a long-lasting tool that can be used in real-life situations, allowing the brain to continue breaking the patterns developed during fear conditioning.

PTSD can be a life-altering diagnosis. It impacts every aspect of daily life, affecting your ability to socialize, work, and relate to others. If you are still suffering from chronic PTSD, Prism neurofeedback may help you get your life back.

Sources

1. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; American Psychiatric Association Publishing: Washington, DC, USA, 2022; ISBN 0-89042-575-2.
2. Schein, Jeffrey, et al. “Prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder in the United States: A systematic literature review.” Current Medical Research and Opinion, vol. 37, no. 12, 23 Sept. 2021, pp. 2151–2161, https://doi.org/10.1080/03007995.2021.1978417.
3. Bryant, Richard A., et al. “Acute and chronic posttraumatic stress symptoms in the emergence of posttraumatic stress disorder.” JAMA Psychiatry, vol. 74, no. 2, 1 Feb. 2017, p. 135, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.3470.
4. Goldental, Nadav, et al. “Amygdala EFP neurofeedback effects on PTSD symptom clusters and emotional regulation processes.” Journal of Clinical Medicine, vol. 14, no. 7, 2 Apr. 2025, p. 2421, https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm14072421.
5. Fruchter, Eyal, et al. “Amygdala-derived-EEG-fmri-pattern neurofeedback for the treatment of chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. A prospective, Multicenter, multinational study evaluating clinical efficacy.” Psychiatry Research, vol. 333, Mar. 2024, p. 115711, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115711.