edf

name	edf
description	European Data Format (.edf) — clinical EEG / sEEG / PSG standard
layer	L0
group	consumer_eeg
metadata	{"tags":["io","edf","european_data_format","clinical","psg"],"formats":[".edf",".edf+",".bdf"],"modalities":["eeg","seeg","ecog"]}

EDF — European Data Format

Format Overview

EDF (Kemp 1992) is the most widely used clinical EEG format. EDF+ adds asynchronous events. BDF is the 24-bit BioSemi variant. Sleep / PSG labs, epilepsy units, and many BIDS-iEEG deposits use EDF as the data file.

Loader

Primary: mne.io.read_raw_edf / mne.io.read_raw_bdf.

Common Pitfalls

• Mixed sample rates across channels (rare but allowed by spec) — MNE upsamples; verify.
• Annotations vs events — EDF+ annotations need separate parsing.
• Header truncation — some clinical exports trim subject info.

EasyBCI Path

- load:edf

Hands off to MNE's reader; dispatcher handles modality inference from channel-naming + sample rate. See bci/pipeline/SKILL.md Step 1.

References

1. Kemp, B. et al. (1992). A simple format for exchange of digitized polygraphic recordings. EEG Clin. Neurophysiol. 82(5): 391–393. doi:10.1016/0013-4694(92)90009-7.
2. Kemp, B., & Olivan, J. (2003). European Data Format `plus' (EDF+). Clin. Neurophysiol. 114(9): 1755–1761. doi:10.1016/S1388-2457(03)00123-8.

Boundary

• fif: MNE-native; preferred for MEG.
• brainvision: Brain Products vendor format; comparable consumer EEG.
• bids_ieeg: BIDS sidecar overlay (EDF is the data file).