QUANTITATIVE ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY IN AMYOTROPHIC-LATERAL-SCLEROSIS

Objectives: The authors evaluated quantitative EEG (QEEG) in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), in order to see if the confi ned cortical degeneration found in anatomical and functional examinati ons of central (rolandic) regions could give rise to abnormalities of cortical electrical activity. Material and Methods: Eighteen patients with ALS were compared with 14 control subjects comparable for age and sex. The QEEG analysis was blind to the clinical data. Frequency anal ysis of 30 EEG epochs, each of 2.6 s duration, was performed. Results: QEEG in ALS patients showed a significant well-localized decrease of alpha activity only in the central regions, while theta and delta rela tive power did not show any difference from controls. Conclusion: We s uggest that QEEG is able to show evidence of subtle EEG changes probab ly due to loss of cells in the somatomotor cortex selectively affectin g the generator sites. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.