Chapter 26 - Brain Death

Summary

The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) recommends EEG as one of the ancillary methods used to confirm cerebral death in combination with a standardized clinical evaluation. The EEG when recorded using the minimal technical standards as outlined by the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society’s (ACNS) guidelines determines electrocerebral inactivity (ECI). Studies have shown that ECI corroborated a clinical determination of brain death in 96.5% of adults, but similar findings have not been reproduced in children. Electrocerebral inactivity (previously called electrocerebral silence) is defined as the absence of any nonartifactual (cerebral) activity over 2 uV (peak to peak) on a scalp EEG recorded using electrode pairs at least 10 cm apart and other technical criteria outlined by the ACNS.