Computer analysis of brainwaves

The task facing the clinician when trying to analyse an electroencephalogram (brainwave) is a daunting one. He is often dealing with a 16-channel recording (sometimes more), and he has to examine several each day. Each neurophysiological or psychiatric department takes e.e.g.s of their patients, in the same way as a patient in a general ward has an electrocardiogram taken. Diagnosis from an electrocardiogram is relatively straight-forward, but diagnosis from an e.e.g. takes a well trained eye, and this has led to a large amount of computer-analysis work, aimed at helping the clinician in this task. This article is the first of two which review this work