[Value of quantitative EEG and EEG mapping in medicine]

Quantitative EEG consists in digitising the EEG from one or several leads and then mathematically processing the signal usually by Fourier spectral analysis. A reduction of the digital information gives characteristic parameters (frequency, amplitude or power, asymmetry, etc.), which can themselves be averaged and submitted to different statistical analysis. Quantitative EEG is particularly suitable for clinical electropharmacology for the assessment of the profiles of psychotropic drugs, for pharmacokinetic correlations of dose-effect relationships and studies of drug bioavailability. The signals obtained from schizophrenic and depressed patients have well defined quantitative EEG characteristics: dissymmetry of the amplitude and hypovariability of the EEG signals. EEg mapping is performed by computer processing of 16 simultaneous EEG lead recordings. This new form of medical imaging is fast, relatively economical and non-invasive, and it is used in psychophysiology to study cognitive tasks and the states of vigilance and sleep. It is also used to study the EEG topography of cerebrovascular accidents, brain tumours, cranial trauma, cerebral degeneration and dementia, and the EEGs of psychiatric patients on psychotropic drugs. EEG mapping represents not only a static and statistical approach by drawing the averaged maps of groups of patients but also a dynamic approach by the recording of sequential individual maps presented as an animated film. The results of this method can be correlated with other medical imaging techniques used to investigate the central nervous system.