Neuropsychiatry and quantitative EEG in the 21 st Century Practice points

495 ISSN 1758-2008 10.2217/NPY.11.45 © 2011 Future Medicine Ltd Neuropsychiatry (2011) 1(5), 495–514 Summary The human brain weighs approximately 3 lbs and consumes 40–60% of blood glucose. This disproportionate amount of energy is used to create electricity in approximately 100 billion interconnected neurons. Quantitative EEG is a real-time movie of the electrical activity of the preconscious and conscious mind at frequencies of approximately 1–300 Hz. Numerous studies have cross-validated electrical neuroimaging by structural MRI, functional MRI and diffusion spectral imaging and thereby demonstrated how quantitative EEG can aid in linking a patient’s symptoms and complaints to functional specialization in the brain. Electrical neuroimaging provides an inexpensive millisecond measure of functional modules, including the animation of structures through phase shift and phase lock. Today, neuropsychiatrists use these methods to link a patient’s symptoms and complaints to functional specialization in the brain and use this information to implement treatment via brain–computer Interfaces and neurofeedback technology.