Abscess A System for the Analysis by Small Computer of EEG Signals in a Clinical Setting

Abstract

The clinical electroencephalogram, (EEG), is a recording, customarily of 16 channels of ten to fifteen minutes duration, of the electrical activity of the cerebral cortex carried out for the purpose of establishing the presence and nature of physical or biochemical disorders of the brain. The EEG is to the brain much as the ECG (electrocardiogram) is to the heart, but is far more complex and its generation less well understood. It is primarily used as a screening device, to detect whether the brain is normal or not and in the elucidation of the diagnosis of epilepsy and it shows the presence of structural changes such as occurs with strokes and cerebral tumours and infections of the brain, for example, abscess or encephalitis. It is a sensitive test of function but commonly limited in its ability to precisely locate discrete lesions which are better visualised by x-ray methods.