Nasopharyngeal EEG recording in psychiatric patients.

Because psychiatric patients with underlying CNS pathology in the temporal lobe areas may not respond well to traditional medications, the detection of electroencephalogram (EEG) abnormalities in patients with behavior dysfunction can be valuable to the evaluation process. As EEGs recorded with nasopharyngeal electrodes can monitor dysrhythmic discharges in the basomedial aspects of the temporal lobe that are not visible with the routine wake scalp EEG, the authors tried to determine whether the nasopharyngeal lead EEGs are more effective than the scalp EEGs in detecting spike and spike-and-wave discharges. The EEGs of 648 psychiatric inpatients and outpatients, which were recorded over an 18-month period from January 1985 to June 1986, were retrospectively studied, and the results showed that the nasopharyngeal lead recordings revealed a greater percentage of epileptiform abnormalities.