The Research Behind Brain Balance

Brain Balance has published eight peer-reviewed studies since 2020 across seven academic journals, including Psychiatry Research (Elsevier), Frontiers in Psychology, Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (Nature/Springer Nature), Current Psychology (Springer), the Journal for the Study of Education and Development (Taylor & Francis), the Journal of Mental Health and Clinical Psychology, and the Journal of Advances in Medicine and Medical Research.

The research spans multiple outcome domains — cognitive performance, ADHD symptoms, developmental milestones, anxiety, emotional functioning, primitive reflex integration, and sensorimotor skills — and has been conducted in Brain Balance centers, in a school setting, and through the at-home virtual program. Sample sizes range from 16 to 47,571 participants, with the largest studies analyzing data from thousands of children across the United States.

Five institutional collaborators have contributed to this body of research. Researchers at Harvard Medical School's McLean Hospital led the ADHD study that found symptom reductions comparable to low-dose stimulant medication. Cambridge Brain Sciences (now Creyos Health) provided the independent cognitive testing platform used to measure cognitive outcomes. Faculty from Dominican University of California, the University of Iowa, and Friends University have co-authored studies examining developmental outcomes, school-based delivery, and emotional functioning.

These studies use a variety of assessment methods — standardized clinical instruments (Brown ADD Scales, Vanderbilt ADHD Teacher Rating Scale, Cambridge Brain Sciences cognitive battery), validated parent-report surveys, primitive reflex assessments, sensorimotor testing, and quantitative EEG — providing multiple independent lines of evidence for program effects.

Brain Balance is transparent about the current state of its research. Most studies to date use pre-post or retrospective designs rather than randomized controlled trials. The program acknowledges that larger, controlled studies with independent outcome measures and longitudinal follow-up are needed to further strengthen the evidence base. Each study page on this site includes an honest discussion of its limitations.