Brain Mapping Research

Research – Part 1: Improving the Brain with Brain Mapping

Analyzing Alzheimer’s Conditions

As Relating to Memory Loss

Dr, John R. Hughes, M.D., Ph.D. and E. Roy John, Ph.D. from the Department of Neurology, University of Illinois School of Medicine, and the Brain Research Laboratories, New York University Medical Center, and the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research state that, “During the last decade, more than 500 EEG and QEEG papers have reported well-designed studies, concurring that EEG and QEEG abnormalities are found in a high proportion of psychiatric patients.

Of all the imaging modalities, the greatest body of replicated evidence regarding psychiatric and developmental disorders, has been provided by EEG and Brain Map EEG studies.”

In their paper of Conventional and Quantitative Electroencephalography in Psychiatry, published in The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences in 1999, Drs Hughes and John write that,

“In organic syndromes showing cognitive deficits such as memory dysfunction,

the prevalence of EEG abnormalities is directly related to the degree of cognitive impairment, and:

If clinical impairment is equivocal, the incidence of EEG abnormalities is usually slightly over 40%.

With a mild-to-moderate impairment, a 65% incidence is expected

The EEG is a moderately sensitive, showing an non-specific indication of brain dysfunction, and this is clearly useful in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Increased slow activity and decreased mean frequency are correlated with cognitive impairment and measure clinical severity of Alzheimer’s dementia.

The EEG frequency analysis allows confident detections of excessive slowing. This is more readily measured and quantified than with conventional EEG.

The QEEG studies in dementia patients are in agreement with conventional EEG findings, reporting increased delta and/or theta power, decreased mean frequency, decreased beta power, and decreased occipital dominant frequency.

The EEG slowing is highly correlated with decreased regional blood flow.

The QEEG can detect reliable focal features that are missed in the routine EEG, and these can be quite abnormal even when the CT is still normal, such as in the first 1 to 3 days after a stroke.

Alzheimer’s dementia and multi-infarct dementia (MID) have been differentiated by evaluating asymmetry of slow activity.

Multiple studies report accurate discrimination of Alzheimer’s patients from depressed patients or from normal subjects by use of an EEG brain map.

Thus it can be seen from the research of Hughes and John, that the use of QEEG brain mapping is necessary in the evaluation of the many stages of Alzheimer’s, including the progression degree of severity of Alzheimer’s, according to the many indicators, including the slow wave activity occurring in the brain.

They further state that the EEG brain map has the ability to determine the degree of severity of Alzheimer’s, for it also has the ability to determine whether or not the memory problem results from an Alzheimer’s condition or from a different type of dementia,

as in a loss of memory caused by a stroke or a series of small strokes.

This information is vital to have for the knowledge of knowing what therapies to use that will improve the negative conditions and make improvements to the brain.