The Study of Brain Waves

The study of brain waves gives medical researchers and doctors insight into a number of conditions. Doctors and scientists look at the pattern of waves in the brain and how they respond in the presences of certain stimuli or during certain events, such as a seizure. As more advanced equipment and more precise methods of monitoring brain waves emerge, researchers hope to gain more insight into the complex mechanisms of the brain.

Electroencephalogram

• The electroencephalogram, or EEG, is the test that doctors use most often to measure the waves in your brain. This is a painless test where doctors stick a number of different sensors to your head that are capable of registering the activity in different parts of your brain. The computer records the waves as your brain produces them. Doctors often try to stimulate certain parts of the brain to see how it reacts by asking the patient to breath differently or by subjecting him to certain stimuli, such as flashing lights.

Epilepsy

• The EEG is one of the primary tools used by doctors to diagnose epilepsy in patients who have had a seizure. Certain types of brainwaves on an EEG indicate to physicians a high likelihood that a patient has epilepsy. Different types of epilepsy are also diagnosed based on the pattern of the irregularities that the doctors see in the brain waves, and on which region of the brain the irregularities occur.

Trauma

• When you experience trauma to the brain, the way the organ operates might be compromised. By studying brain waves, doctors learn how the brain is functioning after the trauma. Doctors might want to examine a patient's brain waves after he suffers from a head injury that appears to have altered the mental processes. Strokes or conditions that cause swelling in the brain are also cases where an EEG might be requested.

BEAM

• Brain Electrical Activity Mapping, or BEAM, is an EEG-like technology that allows doctors to create a color-coded map of the brain that indicates how brain waves are operating in specific parts of the brain. This is a more advanced technology that allows doctors to get a more specific picture of brain activity. BEAM is being used by researchers to help pursue objectives, such as defining more clearly the criteria for diagnosis of certain learning or neurological disorders in children.