Transfer of Thermal Biofeedback Training from One Hand to the Opposite Hand

Thermal biofeedback is a way to train subjects to raise and lower peripheral skin temperature. Raising skin temperature has been shown to be useful in treating vascular disorders such as migraine headaches and Raynaud's disease. This study examined the effect that, training of one hand has on subsequent training of the other hand. Subjects were given three sessions of training in either hand warming or hand cooling with their dominant hands, followed by one session of warming or cooling with the opposite hand. Based on prior research, it was hypothesized that prior training of one hand would facilitate training of the other hand, and that subjects initially trained in hand cooling would perform better on the transfer task, regardless of direction. It was also hypothesized that subjects instructed to cool their hands would perform better than those instructed to warm them. The results indicated that on the third training day, cooling subjects performed significantly better than did warming subjects. None of the other hypotheses was statistically supported, but there were trends in the hypothesized directions.