page_title: Electroencephalography
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Electroencephalography / History
caption_attribution_description: English: First published Electroencephalogram of a human. This image is one of the first EEGs, appearing in Berger's First Report. It is a portion of fig. 13 from Berger's first publication on EEG: Berger H. Über das Elektrenkephalogramm des Menschen. Archives für Psychiatrie. 1929; 87:527-70. This was later translated into English and republished: Berger H. On the Electroencephalogram of Man. Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol. 1969;Suppl 28:37-73. PMID&#160;4188918 It appears on page 58 of the translated version. The top trace is the EEG recorded from a young boy, the bottom trace is a 10 Hz frequency reference.
context_page_description: Electroencephalography is an electrophysiological monitoring method to record electrical activity of the brain. It is typically noninvasive, with the electrodes placed along the scalp, although invasive electrodes are sometimes used, as in electrocorticography, sometimes called intracranial EEG.
  EEG measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current within the neurons of the brain. Clinically, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity over a period of time, as recorded from multiple electrodes placed on the scalp. Diagnostic applications generally focus either on event-related potentials or on the spectral content of EEG. The former investigates potential fluctuations time locked to an event, such as 'stimulus onset' or 'button press'. The latter analyses the type of neural oscillations that can be observed in EEG signals in the frequency domain.
  EEG is most often used to diagnose epilepsy, which causes abnormalities in EEG readings. It is also used to diagnose sleep disorders, depth of anesthesia, coma, encephalopathies, and brain death.
context_section_description: In 1875, Richard Caton (1842–1926), a physician practicing in Liverpool, presented his findings about electrical phenomena of the exposed cerebral hemispheres of rabbits and monkeys in the British Medical Journal.  In 1890, Polish physiologist Adolf Beck published an investigation of spontaneous electrical activity of the brain of rabbits and dogs that included rhythmic oscillations altered by light. Beck started experiments on the electrical brain activity of animals. Beck placed electrodes directly on the surface of the brain to test for sensory stimulation. His observation of fluctuating brain activity led to the conclusion of brain waves.
  In 1912, Ukrainian physiologist Vladimir Vladimirovich Pravdich-Neminsky published the first animal EEG and the evoked potential of the mammalian (dog).  In 1914, Napoleon Cybulski and Jelenska-Macieszyna photographed EEG recordings of experimentally induced seizures.
  German physiologist and psychiatrist Hans Berger (1873–1941) recorded the first human EEG in 1924. Expanding on work previously conducted on animals by Richard Caton and others, Berger also invented the electroencephalogram (giving the device its name), an invention described "as one of the most surprising, remarkable, and momentous developments in the history of clinical neurology". His discoveries were first confirmed by British scientists Edgar Douglas Adrian and B. H. C. Matthews in 1934 and developed by them.
  In 1934, Fisher and Lowenback first demonstrated epileptiform spikes. In 1935, Gibbs, Davis and Lennox described interictal spike waves and the three cycles/s pattern of clinical absence seizures, which began the field of clinical electroencephalography. Subsequently, in 1936 Gibbs and Jasper reported the interictal spike as the focal signature of epilepsy. The same year, the first EEG laboratory opened at Massachusetts General Hospital.
  Franklin Offner (1911–1999), professor of biophysics at Northwestern University developed a prototype of the EEG that incorporated a piezoelectric inkwriter called a Crystograph (the whole device was typically known as the Offner Dynograph).
  In 1947, The American EEG Society was founded and the first International EEG congress was held. In 1953 Aserinsky and Kleitman described REM sleep.
  In the 1950s, William Grey Walter developed an adjunct to EEG called EEG topography, which allowed for the mapping of electrical activity across the surface of the brain.  This enjoyed a brief period of popularity in the 1980s and seemed especially promising for psychiatry.  It was never accepted by neurologists and remains primarily a research tool.
  An electroencephalograph system manufactured by Beckman Instruments was used on at least one of the Project Gemini manned spaceflights (1965-1966) to monitor the brain waves of astronauts on the flight. It was one of many Beckman Instruments specialized for and used by NASA.
  In 1988, report was given by Stevo Bozinovski, Mihail Sestakov, and Liljana Bozinovska on EEG control of a physical object, a robot.
  In October 2018, scientists connected the brains of three people to experiment with the process of thoughts sharing. Five groups of three people participated in the experiment using EEG. The success rate of the experiment was 81%.
caption: The first human EEG recording obtained by Hans Berger in 1924. The upper tracing is EEG, and the lower is a 10 Hz timing signal.
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