Crisis of quantitative electroencephalography. Critical remarks on two articles ‘Survey of Russian doctors about routine electroencephalography’ and ‘Rules for registration of routine EEG’ by a team of authors consisting of M.V. Sinkin, E.P. Bogdanova, O.D. Elshina, A.A. Troitchkiy

Abstract

The author of this article entered into a discussion with the authors of these articles ‘Questionnaire …’ and ‘Rules …’, believing that the issues they discussed were at least half a century behind modern possibilities. The author believes that, without detracting from the success of EEG in the field of diagnosing epilepsy, the development of electroencephalography in the study of mental functions, where quantitative EEG should play a significant role, is an urgent problem. In the author’s opinion, the brake on the development of this direction is the poor knowledge of these issues not only by practical neurophysiologists, but also by teaching staff at advanced training departments. One of the main reasons for this is the inadequate level of mathematical support in the software products of the leading companies producing computer electroencephalographs.