To begin, place the animal in a clean cage in the recording room to allow habituation to the new environment. Place the cage into a Faraday cage to avoid interference of the environmental electromagnetic field in the EEG signal. Connect one end of the recording cable to the recording device.
Use a volt meter to measure the electric potential and to differentiate between ground and reference electrodes. Then hold the cement cover on the animal's head, and insert the other end of the recording cable into the electrode connector fixed on the head of the rat. Use a commutator to counterbalance the weight of the recording cable and to allow free movement of the animal without twisting the cable.
Before starting the registration, check all the settings used to acquire and process the data from the EEG. Ensure adequate filtering and sampling rates are applied to avoid artifacts and noise in EEG signals. Start the video recording and the EEG recordings on the monitor.
Check the power in specific frequency bands across time to ensure that the traces match an expected EEG signal. Check the EEG traces periodically. Also, check the animals.
If a recording cable detaches from the electrode connector, reconnect and check for a clear EEG signal. Analyze the EEG signal by screening through the EEG recording and identify seizure-like activities. Confirm the potential convulsive seizures by checking the synchronized video recording collected simultaneously with EEG.
