Evidence-based medicine and neurophysiology

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) was introduced to meet the increasing need of clinicians to keep up-to-date with the research evidence. EBM integrates advances in information technology with those in clinical epidemiology (the study of the distribution and determinants of disease) to provide a coherent strategy for the timely acquisition of the best available evidence on which to base clinical practice. A fundamental component of EBM has been the development of the methodology of research synthesis. Although the main driver of the development of EBM has been to get existing research into practice, the same approach can be used to inform the development of treatments.