Analysis of quantitative EEG with artificial neural networks and discriminant analysis--a methodological comparison

Artificial neural networks (ANN) are widely used to solve problems of differentiating between groups. However, serious comparisons of this method with the traditional procedure for such tasks (discriminant analysis) are rare. Discussing the results of both methods with the example of highly topical data, we try to demonstrate advantages and drawbacks of both methods. For this purpose, quantitative EEGs of 78 alcoholics were investigated in order to determine whether it is possible to predict relapse of these patients at the beginning of treatment. ANN software is available in Kassel (Institute for Computer Sciences and Mathematics).