ABSTRACT
Historical aspects of stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) The first successful attempts to record intracerebral electrical activity date back to the first half of the past century. In those decades, during which the technique of intraoperative recording from the cerebral cortex in epileptic patients had been developed by Penfield and Jasper,1 intracerebral electrodes began to be placed with the aim to record from subcortical structures, mainly in order to elucidate the role of basal nuclei in ‘petit mal’2,3 as well as to investigate cases with presumed ‘centrencephalic’ seizures.4,5 In several studies electrodes were placed using a rough ‘free hand’ technique, which resulted in largely imprecise targeting of intracerebral structures.6-8
Furthermore, despite a trend towards chronic recording was progressively developing, the primary goal of inserting intracerebral electrodes was to record interictal stationary spike discharges, in this way depending on the same concepts established for intraoperative electrocorticography.
