EEG and psychopharmacology.

The waking EEG bears direct relations to chemical changes in the brain induced by drugs. The waking EEG is responsive to the unique characteristics of psychoactive drugs. Their EEG signatures are predictive of their short-term behavioral effects and of their clinical efficacy. This association has led to the development of cerebral electrometry - a technique to predict a drug's clinical profile from experimental trials in normal volunteers. The technique is also useful in pharmacodynamic studies. Cerebral electrometry depends on careful control of behavioral variables, quantification of EEG effects and statistical processing of the data. The EEG-behavioral associations do not depend on a single method of quantification. Behavioral association is predicted for animal studies as well. Lacking, however, are studies in animals with adequate behavioral controls, clinical correlations of direct use to the individual patient and robust tests of this association hypothesis. The past decade has shown the utility of quantitative EEG studies and improved the methodology to a practical art. The next decade should see the techniques used by classical pharmacologists, mindful of the restraints inherent in animal models of the mental aspects of behavior.