Electrocerebral silence and nasopharyngeal EEG.

This limited study of six comatose patients who showed clinical signs of brain death was conducted to seek answers to the proposed questions regarding the confirmation of concurrent activity in both scalp and nasopharyngeal electrode tracings, and the detection of any recordable activity from the nasopharyngeal electrodes once no further electrical activity is detected from the surface electrodes. It appears that the nasopharyngeal electrode tracings are as informative as scalp surface electrode tracing is as informative as a scalp surface electrodes tracing in cases of electrocerebral silence. Perhaps a larger patient population testing should be studied to re-affirm this observation.