ABSTRACT
Method of monitoring the electrical activity of the brain using electrodes attached to the scalp. Pioneered from 1929 onwards by the German physiologist Hans Berger (who later committed suicide under Nazi persecution), the technique remained largely ignored until confirmed in 1934 by E.D. Adrian and H.C. Matthews working at the Cambridge Physiological Laboratory. After 1945, it was soon attracting widespread attention, notably in the work of W. Grey Walter, popularised in his The Living Brain (Walter, 1953). The EEG identified three basic kinds of electrical rhythm in the brain – Alpha (the most rapid), Beta and Delta (the slowest) – and soon became a major technique in the study of sleep and diagnosis of brain disorders such as epilepsy, the EEG Journal being founded in 1949.
