EEG discovery
On July 6, 1924, psychiatrist Hans Berger performed surgery. First EEG recording in humansa 17-year-old boy undergoing neurosurgery. At the time, Berger and other researchers were making electrical recordings on the brains of animals.
What sets Berger apart is his obsession with finding The material basis of what he called “psychic energy.”“, or mental effort, in people. Through a series of experiments early in his career, Berger measured the size and temperature of the brain to study changes in mental processes such as intellectual work, attention, and desire.
He then set about recording electrical activity. Although he recorded the first electroencephalogram (EEG) traces in the human brain in 1924, he did not Results published up to 1929.These intervening five years were a whirlwind of doubts about the source of the EEG signal in the brain and refinement of the experimental setup. Berger recorded hundreds of EEGs on several individuals, including his own children, with experimental successes and setbacks.
Two EEG traces, the upper one with a more regular rhythm than the lower one. Hans Berger/On the Electroencephalogram of Men. Archives of Psychiatry. 1929;87:527-70 via Wikimedia Commons
Finally convinced by his results, he published a series of articles in the journal Archive of Psychiatry He hoped to win the Nobel Prize. Unfortunately, the scientific community was skeptical of his results, and it would be years before anyone began using EEGs in their own research.
