Pharmaco-EEG mapping of diazepam effects using different references and absolute and relative power

The effects of diazepam on the EEG were studied by means of EEG topographic mapping, using recordings with four different references. Subjects were ten healthy, right-handed, male volunteers aged 21-25 years. Double-blind crossover trials with a single oral dose of 10 mg diazepam and placebo controls were conducted in random sequence at intervals of one week. Four referential derivations--ipsilateral earlobe (A1A2), average reference (AV), source derivation (SD), and balanced noncephalic electrode (BNE)--were used. One-minute vigilance-controlled EEGs before drug administration and two hours after drug administration were analyzed using Fourier transformation; absolute power and relative power were calculated for four frequency bands. Diazepam caused a widespread increase of beta-frequency relative power, and a widespread decrease of theta-frequency absolute power when A1A2 and SD were taken as references. From the comparison of different reference electrodes we conclude that the selection of the reference and of spectral parameters (absolute power or relative power) play an important role in pharmaco-EEG studies.