Electroencephalography (EEG)
What EEG records, routine versus sleep-deprived, ambulatory and video-EEG, reading the background and discharges, classic patterns (3 Hz spike-wave, JME, LPDs, triphasic waves, CJD), ICU terminology, yield and over-reading, and when the result changes management.
Tier 2Medical sciences concept
Written with AI assistance and fact-checked against the sources below. For exam study, not clinical decisions. How notes are made
At a glance
- EEG records summed postsynaptic potentials of cortical pyramidal neurons through 21 scalp electrodes (10-20 system). It sees surface cortex well and deep or small sources poorly.
- It supports the diagnosis and classification of epilepsy and finds non-convulsive seizures. It never diagnoses epilepsy on its own.
- Normal interictal EEG is common in epilepsy, and benign variants are often over-read.
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Sources
- Epilepsies in children, young people and adults (NG217)NICE, 2022, with later updates
- Therapeutic Guidelines: Neurology (seizures and epilepsy)AU/NZTherapeutic Guidelines Limited
- Assessing Fitness to Drive (AP-G56), Seizures and epilepsyAU/NZAustroads and National Transport Commission, 2022
- American Clinical Neurophysiology Society's Standardized Critical Care EEG Terminology: 2021 version (Hirsch LJ et al. J Clin Neurophysiol 2021;38:1-29)American Clinical Neurophysiology Society, 2021
- Minimum standards for inpatient long-term video-EEG monitoring: a clinical practice guideline of the ILAE and IFCN (Tatum WO et al. Clin Neurophysiol 2022)International League Against Epilepsy and International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology, 2022
- European Resuscitation Council and European Society of Intensive Care Medicine guidelines 2025: post-resuscitation careERC and ESICM (Resuscitation 2025), 2025
- Salzburg consensus criteria for non-convulsive status epilepticus: approach to clinical application (Leitinger M et al. Epilepsy Behav 2015;49:158-63)Epilepsy and Behavior, 2015
- Last updated
- 14 November 2026
What changed
- 14 November 2026 Personal emails, About story and Australian-style copy