EEG and long-term video EEG as clinical tools and research topics in the field of neurology

Abstract

EEG can detect brain dysfunction which is difficult to be detected by neuroimages and blood tests, therefore it is effective in diagnosing epilepsy, sleep medicine, and disturbance of consciousness. It is clinically significant that EEG makes it possible to investigate the relationship between symptoms and EEG by recording videos simultaneously. Long-term video EEG monitoring is useful to detect abnormalities that could not be extracted by short-time conventional EEG recording. Due to development of digital technologies and higher performance amplifiers, EEG became possible to record high-frequency and low-frequency EEG activities with a long-time scale, and several new knowledges have been obtained in the research fields. New research fields have been expanding; such as utilizing EEG as long-term biological signal sensor, introduction of machine learning for EEG data analysis, and trial use as a telemedicine and educational tool. The usefulness of EEG in the field of neurology and several examples of EEG/long-term video EEG monitoring as promising research tools will be introduced in this section.