I read the first chapter of Mark H. Libenson's Practical Approach to Electroencephalography. The first chapter is a brief introduction to electroencephalography (EEG).

Here are a few fun facts I learned:

There are very advanced imaging techniques (CT scans, MRIs, fMRIs, nuclear medicine imaging). And EEGs have a very important use in assessing neurological disorders like seizures and comas.

While advanced imaging techniques are used to create snapshots of a patient's internal anatomy, EEG tests record electrical brain patterns over time. These patterns help doctors assess a patient's electrical irritability in the brain and whether the patient is awake or asleep.

EEGs are used by doctors to evaluate seizures, coma states, and distinguish psychiatric illness from organic disease.

In the 1700s, Luigi Galvani was the first person to suggest that animal bodies are a source of electricity. He discovered this when he saw the leg of a dead frog twitch when one of the frog's nerve was shocked accidentally.

In the 1800s, Richard Caton was the first person to observe electrical activity from the brains of monkeys and rabbits. He used a Thomson Galvanometer, which projected (not recorded) voltage differences.

In the 1900s, Hans Berger was the first person to record EEG in humans. He first tried to record EEGs by using the tools to conduct electrocardiograms on patients with skull defects or lesions. The first person to ever have their brain activity recorded was Klaus Berger, Hans' son, in 1920.

The last section of the book summarizes each chapter and explains the importance of the topics covered in the chapter.

Chapter 4 covers EEG localization techniques which help EEG technologists translate a group of waves into a 3D map of charge and understand how these 3D maps change over time.

This section says that one of the main points of interest in understanding EEGs is to learn new insights about the brain from deciphering new patterns in the electrical activity of the brain.

Some other topics I'm excited to learn about include EEG montage strategies and electrode placements, artifact recognition, EEG reports, and the biochemistry of EEG waves.