Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, only EEG gives you that kind of information. fMRI takes a lot of post-processing with complex statistics to produce any kind of useful information. I worked on a study that used fMRI to study the involvement of early visual areas in the cortex during reading tasks, and when processing long runs we'd get on with other stuff while the data was being processed. There isn't any existing tech to take surface data and…
> fMRI takes a lot of post-processing with complex statistics to produce any kind of useful information. So does EEG. The reason EEG is closer to real-time than fMRI is because of the sampling rate. With fMRI, .9 Hz is considered quite good. For EEG, 2000 Hz is considered standard.
If the EEG is measured from the scalp 200-250 Hz sampling rate is usually good enough. It enables EEG recordings up to 80-90 Hz. Most clinical uses are interested EEG below 40 Hz.