In addition to encountering most of the conditions treated by clinicians in the West, clinicians in the tropics are faced with unique tropical encephalopathies. These are largely but not entirely infectious in nature. Despite the relatively low cost of EEG technology, it remains unavailable in many low-income tropical settings even at the tertiary care level. Where available, the EEG recordings and interpretation are often of unacceptable quality. Nonetheless, there are existing data on the EEG patterns seen in malaria and a number of tropical viral, bacterial, and parasitic infestations.