Sources of abnormal EEG activity in spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage

This report describes the results obtained with EEG source analysis in the frequency domain (FD-VARETA), in 14 patients with brain hemorrhages; 6 hemorrhages were located in the putaminal region, 1 was mesencephalic and 7 were lobar cerebral hemorrhages. Our goal was to evaluate FD-VARETA accuracy for the localization of fast growth expansive brain lesions. FD-VARETA produces brain electromagnetic tomography images of EEG sources in every frequency. The location of the most abnormal or the maximum Z value across all frequencies was compared with the location of spontaneous hemorrhages in computed tomographies (CT). In all patients the main source was within delta or theta bands. The spatial extent of the sources, in the brain atlas, at these frequency values was almost the same as the volume of hematoma in CT. Putaminal lesions produced larger regions of cortical deafferentation than lobar hematomas, with higher abnormal Z values. FD-VARETA was more accurate in locating the lesions than traditional maps of absolute and relative power in delta, theta, alpha and beta bands.

FD-VARETA is a valuable procedure for the functional evaluation of brain hemorrhages.