Computer Analysis of the Telemetered EEG in the Study of Epilepsy and Schizophrenia

Abstract

As has long been appreciated, significant abnormalities of electrical activity in the deep structures of the brain are often entirely undetectable in the scalp EEG. Because of medical risks and ethical objections associated with the introduction of intracerebral electrodes in the study of patients with generalized epilepsy, behaviour disorders and psychoses, we have sought to develop non-invasive methods for localization of the subcortical EEG abnormalities in patients with these diagnoses. Two techniques which use episodic disturbances in behaviour to examine EEG power spectra associated with periods of abnormal and normal behaviour have been developed in our laboratory: 1. the sorting of averaged brief epochs of EEG spectra on the basis of normal or pathologically prolonged reaction time; 2. correlation of power spectra from 24 hours telemetered EEG with clinical seizures and during normal and abnormal behaviours in patients with epilepsy and schizophrenia, respectively.

This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health grant 18055.