Cognitive Brain Potentials and their Application

Abstract

Computerised averaging methods have made it possible to extract and identify the electrical activity accompanying specific activities of the brain, including certain psychological processes, from the random background signals in electroencephalography (EEG). Event-related potentials (ERPs) and the way these change under various recording conditions are a powerful, non-invasive and relatively simple means of relating psychopathology to underlying physiology, and by comparing ERPs with imaging data it should be possible to compare electrical activity with changes in brain structure and blood flow in different disease states.