Artifacts on electroencephalograms may influence the amplitude-integrated EEG classification: a qualitative analysis in neonatal encephalopathy.

This is a case report and a descriptive study demonstrating that artifacts are common during long-term recording of amplitude-integrated electroencephalograms and may lead to erroneous classification of the amplitude-integrated electroencephalogram trace. Artifacts occurred in 12% of 200 hours of recording time sampled from a representative sample of 20 infants with neonatal encephalopathy. Artifacts derived from electrical or movement interference occurred with similar frequency; both types of artifacts influenced the voltage and width of the amplitude-integrated electroencephalogram band. This is important knowledge especially if amplitude-integrated electroencephalogram is used as a selection tool for neuroprotection intervention studies.