Abstract:

To understand how alcohol interferes with brain function, previous researches were focused mostly on the analysis of characteristics of subjects’ electroencephalogram (EEG) rhythms, while studies on their scalp distribution were insufficient. In this work, the scalp distribution of EEG power in alcoholic and normal controls using three experiment paradigms has been analyzed. The results show that, across all these experiments, alpha, delta and theta powers in the occipital region of alcoholics are significantly lower than those in normal subjects; while beta and gamma powers in the frontal and temporal region is much higher than the control group. Moreover, different experiment tasks had varied effects on the powers and on their distribution among all rhythms. Alpha power varied across the experiments, theta in the occipital region, and gamma power in frontal regions. However the paradigms had no effect on the distribution of beta power. It has been concluded that the decreased power of low frequency and the increased power of higher frequency imply the longterm abuse of ethanol, which would cause brain damage and deficiency in brain function. Such effects were revealed through different scalp distribution of brain’s electrical activities.

Key words: alcoholic; electroencephalogram (EEG); rhythm; power