Neuroscience

A virtual brain helps decrypt epilepsy

Researchers at CNRS, INSERM, Aix-Marseille University and AP-HM have just created a virtual brain that can reconstitute the brain of a person affected by epilepsy for the first time. From this work we understand better how ...

Neuroscience

Coma: Researchers observe never-before-detected brain activity

Researchers from the University of Montreal and their colleagues have found brain activity beyond a flat line EEG, which they have called Nu-complexes (from the Greek letter Νν). According to existing scientific data, researchers ...

Neuroscience

How the brain loses and regains consciousness (w/ video)

Since the mid-1800s, doctors have used drugs to induce general anesthesia in patients undergoing surgery. Despite their widespread use, little is known about how these drugs create such a profound loss of consciousness.

Neuroscience

Hearing brainwaves: Epilepsy EEG sonified

A simple method of converting the brain wave signals of people living with epilepsy into sound has been developed by a team of researchers at the University of Sydney.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

One case of rare brain disease confirmed in B.C.

One case of a rare, degenerative brain disease has been confirmed in British Columbia's Fraser Valley, and a health official says two other cases are now suspected.

page 1 from 3

Electroencephalography

Electroencephalography (EEG) is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp. EEG measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current flows within the neurons of the brain. In clinical contexts, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity over a short period of time, usually 20–40 minutes, as recorded from multiple electrodes placed on the scalp. In neurology, the main diagnostic application of EEG is in the case of epilepsy, as epileptic activity can create clear abnormalities on a standard EEG study. A secondary clinical use of EEG is in the diagnosis of coma, encephalopathies, and brain death. EEG used to be a first-line method for the diagnosis of tumors, stroke and other focal brain disorders, but this use has decreased with the advent of anatomical imaging techniques with high (<1 mm) spatial resolution like as MRI and CT. Despite limited spatial resolution, EEG continues to be a valuable tool for research and diagnosis, especially when millisecond-range temporal resolution (not possible with CT or MRI) is required.

Derivatives of the EEG technique include evoked potentials (EP), which involves averaging the EEG activity time-locked to the presentation of a stimulus of some sort (visual, somatosensory, or auditory). Event-related potentials (ERPs) refer to averaged EEG responses that are time-locked to more complex processing of stimuli; this technique is used in cognitive science, cognitive psychology, and psychophysiological research.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA