Patent ID: 6947790

Claim:
The method of measuring changes in a human subject's fundamental cognitive brain functions, the changes, for example, being due to disease, injury, remedial treatment, the utilization of medicines and normal variation within and between days and over a period of time, including the steps of: (a) presenting an attention-damanding task to the subject, which engages one or more of the subject's fundamental cognitive functions, and, simultaneously; (b) at least once, measuring the subject's behavioral responses to the task, and neuroelectric activity at the subject's scalp using a set of electroencephalograph (EEG) electrodes and amplifier and analog/digital converters, to provide a set of baseline digital data representing the subject's baseline state behavioral responses and neuroelectric activity response to the task; (c) at least once again, measuring the subject's behavioral responses to the task, and neuroelectric activity at the subject's scalp using a set of electroencephalograph (EEG) electrodes and amplifier and analog/digital converters, to provide a set of possibly altered state digital data representing the subject's possibly altered state behavioral responses and neuroelectric activity in response to the task; (d) in a computer system, comparing the subject's baseline state and possibly altered state digital data using a mathematical function derived from behavioral responses and EEG derived neuroelectric activity responses of a reference group of subjects performing the same task recorded in their baseline and altered state conditions, the comparison using a multivariate statistical method combining measures of task performance with brain function measures in a single comparison, and (e) deriving one or more scores for the subject based on the comparison described in (d) and determining the significance of those scores.