Quantitative electroencephalography in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
OBJECTIVE
The authors evaluated quantitative EEG (QEEG) in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), in order to see if the confined cortical degeneration found in anatomical and functional examinations of central (rolandic) regions could give rise to abnormalities of cortical electrical activity.


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 analysis 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 relative power did not show any difference from controls.


CONCLUSIONS
We suggest that QEEG is able to show evidence of subtle EEG changes probably due to loss of cells in the somatomotor cortex selectively affecting the generator sites.
Mai
R
R
Salvatore Maugeri Foundation, IRCCS, Rehabilitation Institute of Gussago, Neurophysiology Service, Gussago BS, Italy.
Facchetti
D
D
Micheli
A
A
Poloni
M
M
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology