EEG and epilepsy

Dr Richard Jones from the Van der Veer Institute for Parkinson’s & Brain Research talks about EEG. An EEG (electroencephalogram) measures electrical activity from the 100 billion neurons in our brains.

Transcript

DR RICHARD JONES So EEG is the electroencephalogram, and it’s this electrical activity from the brain, so the brain is made up of this 100 billion neurons. They’re all sort of firing away at various times, and we can measure that by using electrodes such as these. We put them over the head, so this has got 64 channels all over the head, and we can measure that electrical activity and measure things in certain areas of the brain. Perhaps one of the biggest clinical uses of it is for epilepsy.

If a person is referred to hospital, for example, for suspected epilepsy, they’d be put on the couch for 20 minutes, they’d get the EEG recorded, and they’re looking to see if there is any activity. If the person happens to have a seizure, then the whole EEG just goes wild. So that’s one use of EEG, but it is used for other things as well, of course.