Adequacy of the International 10–20 Electrode System for Computed Neurophysiologic Topography

Abstract

The adequacy of the International 10-20 System is reviewed in light of demands imposed on the accuracy of lead placement by improvements in spatiotemporal brain electrical activity mapping technology. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies reveal that the most frequent sources of inaccuracy of electrode locations are difficulties in defining the inion, variance in the anatomy of the occipital bone, inconspicuous sagittal deformities, variance of sulcal pattern, and brain width asymmetries. Owing to these factors, electrodes placed bilaterally and equidistant from the nasion-inion line may not be homotopically located. Therefore, the authors suggest that practitioners who employ the 10-20 System in order to gain precise and more individualized laterality information do so with extreme caution until the range of placement and interpretative errors is more precisely determined using CT/MRI-assisted EEG.