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14 - Electroencephalography and amplitude-integrated EEG

from Section 3 - Radiological and neurophysiological investigations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2011

By
Lena Hellström-Westas  and
Ingmar Rosén
Edited by
Hugo Lagercrantz ,
M. A. Hanson ,
Laura R. Ment  and
Donald M. Peebles
Hugo Lagercrantz
Affiliation:
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm
M. A. Hanson
Affiliation:
Southampton General Hospital
Laura R. Ment
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Donald M. Peebles
Affiliation:
University College London
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Summary

Introduction

The electroencephalogram (EEG) records electrical activity from the cerebral cortex. This activity is derived from synchronized postsynaptic action potentials from large numbers of neurons, reflecting the functional state of the brain. Thousands of publications have described the EEG during normal and abnormal conditions, in subjects of different ages, including very preterm newborn infants. Spontaneous recurrent action potentials within thalamocortical relay cells, the reticular thalamic nucleus, and cortical pyramidal cells constitute the basis for the EEG activity (Steriade et al., 1990). This activity is synchronized by recurrent connections between the thalamocortical relay cells and the reticular thalamic nucleus, and by thalamocortical connections. In adults, intracortical connections generate higher frequency EEG components during mental processes and active wakefulness. During arousal, cholinergic (and norepinephrinergic) afferents from the brainstem exert an excitatory depolarizing effect on thalamocortical and cortical cells and inhibit the reticular thalamic cells. The net result of arousal is a reduction of synchronous low-frequency activity, and an increase of asynchronous high-frequency activity. The neurophysiological basis for the EEG in newborn preterm and term infants is not very well known. The cortical subplate zone, a structure that is present in the fetus during the second trimester and which is the origin of thalamocortical and corticocortical afferents, probably modulates EEG activity via cortical connections (Kostovic & Jovanov-Milosevic, 2006). The subplate zone is probably also important for the mechanisms underlying spontaneous activity transients (SAT) in the discontinuous EEG of very preterm infants. The SATs are characterized by very-low-frequency waves with higher-frequency components superimposed.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Newborn Brain
Neuroscience and Clinical Applications
 , pp. 211 - 228
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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