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Background. Electroencephalography (EEG) is commonly used to assess the neurological prognosis of comatose patients after cardiac arrest (CA). However, the early prognostic accuracy of EEG may be affected by postresuscitation interventions. Recent animal studies found that hydrogen inhalation after CA greatly improved neurological outcomes by selectively neutralizing highly reactive oxidants, but the effect of hydrogen inhalation on EEG recovery and its prognostication value are still unclear. The present study investigated the effects of hydrogen inhalation on early postresuscitation EEG characteristics in an asphyxial CA rat model. Methods. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was initiated after 5 min of untreated CA in 40 adult female Sprague-Dawley rats. Animals were randomized for ventilation with 98% oxygen plus 2% hydrogen (H2) or 98% oxygen plus 2% nitrogen (Ctrl) under normothermia for 1 h. EEG characteristics were continuously recorded for 4 h, and the relationships between quantitative EEG characteristics and 96 h neurological outcomes were investigated. Results. No differences in baseline and resuscitation data were observed between groups, but the survival rate was significantly higher in the H2 group than in the Ctrl group (90% vs. 40%, P<0.01). Compared to the Ctrl group, the H2 group showed a shorter burst onset time (21.85 [20.00–23.38] vs. 25.70 [22.48–30.05], P<0.01) and time to normal trace (169.83 [161.63–208.55] vs. 208.39 [186.29–248.80], P<0.01). Additionally, the burst suppression ratio (0.66 ± 0.09 vs. 0.52 ± 0.17, P<0.01) and weighted‐permutation entropy (0.47 ± 0.16 vs. 0.34 ± 0.13, P<0.01) were markedly higher in the H2 group. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves for the 4 EEG characteristics in predicting survival were 0.82, 0.84, 0.88, and 0.83, respectively. Conclusions. In this asphyxial CA rat model, the improved postresuscitation EEG characteristics for animals treated with hydrogen are correlated with the better 96 h neurological outcome and predicted survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]