Majromax
14 hours ago
> During the intervention week, participants wore an electroencephalogram (EEG)-enabled headband that delivered acoustic pulses timed to arrive anti-phase with alpha for 30 min (Stimulation). During the Sham week, the headband silently recorded EEG.
Now, I might just be misreading this, but doesn't this sound like an awful way to blind the trial?
During the experimental week, participants evidently had the headband beep (okay, blast pink noise) at them for half an hour. For the sham week, it didn't. It seems like participants would be able to tell whether their headband is active or whether they're in the placebo week.
It seems to me that the better control would have been to still give participants pink noise pulses at approximately the same frequency, but without regard for the measured alpha wave cycles.
m3kw9
14 hours ago
you just have a set of participents just try to sleep without it and compare. I don't think there is a standard "placebo" for a sound.
Majromax
13 hours ago
The point of the experiment isn't the sound itself, however, it's carefully timing the sounds to the allegedly correct part of the alpha brainwave cycle. That's why the participants were wearing EEG headbands for the study.
By having a sham treatment with random sound timing, you capture the baseline effect of the sound in both the experiment and control, leaving the timing as the experimental variable.