ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE OF CORTICAL "DEATH" FOLLOWED BY FULL RECOVERY

Abstract

A new application in the operating room has been found recently for electroencephalography. Patterns that have been of assistance to anesthesiologists have been established at various levels of barbiturate and general anesthesia.¹The electroencephalograph has been used to control the rate of administration of the anesthetic according to the changes in potentials registered by the instrument.²Considerable animal experimentation has been done in the last few years with electroencephalographic recordings during various levels of anesthesia and simulated catastrophes during anesthesia, e. g., cardiac arrest and ventricular fibrillation, and under conditions of hypothermia.³From this material it should be possible to arrive at some electroencephalographic criteria that will permit a moment-to-moment estimate of the level of anesthesia and the patient's cortical activity. Hypothermia, as a new adjunct to surgery, may present some alterations in these criteria, changing the prognosis in any individual case. The following is one in