McLaren / Kettering Fibromyalgia Research Program

Seeking solutions to chronic pain through the science of the brain

The electroencephalograph (EEG)

Electroencephalography, or “EEG”, is one of the oldest and most established methods in existence for measuring brain activity. An EEG measures the electrical signals generated by the brain itself from billions of neuronal events that take place every second of our lives. Modern EEG equipment measures this electrical activity with extreme accuracy using simple sensors that just rest comfortably on about 20 different places on the scalp.

In a technique called “quantitative electroencephalography”, or qEEG, computers run advanced mathematical analyses of the measured EEG signals. Using qEEG is a relatively modern technique for analyzing the function of the brain. While less visually elegant that MRIs or CT scans, the enormously complicated computations done by qEEG provide healthcare professionals with information about subtle differences in the actual function of the brain. In other words, while MRIs and CT scans provide great pictures that show what the tissues of the brain look like, qEEG provides very detailed information about how the brain is actually working.

By the way, this doesn’t mean you can’t get great pictures with qEEG too! Check out our Research page to see examples of qEEG analysis images of some of our research subjects.

In our research, we’re studying the brain activity of Fibromyalgia patients using qEEG analysis. One of the hallmarks of qEEG analysis is to compare findings from a “population” (in our case, the population is Fibromyalgia patients) to a large, internationally validated database of brain activity measured from healthy, “normal” individuals. These comparisons allow scientists to determine whether there is a difference in the brain activity of the “population” compared to the brain activity of healthy, normal individuals. Our goal is to see if there are measurable differences in the brain activity of the Fibromyalgia patient as compared to the “normal” brain activity.

Once the nature of the brain activity of the Fibromyalgia patient is understood, research scientists will have a much better chance of finding ways to correct the problem and overcome Fibromyalgia once and for all. EEG may prove to be a key to that success!