World Scientific Publishing, International Journal of Neural Systems, 05(25), p. 1550022
DOI: 10.1142/s0129065715500227
Full text: Unavailable
Epilepsy is a disease characterized by aberrant connections between brain areas. The altered activity patterns generated by epileptic networks can be analyzed with intracerebral electrodes during pre-surgical stereo-electroencephalographic (EEG) monitoring in patients candidate to epilepsy surgery. The responses to high frequency stimulation (HFS) at 50Hz performed for diagnostic purposes during SEEG were analyzed with a new algorithm, to evaluate signal parameters that are masked to visual inspection and to define the boundaries of the epileptogenic network. The analysis was focused on 60–80 Hz activity that represented the largest frequency component evoked by HFS. The distribution of HFS-evoked fast activity across all (up to 162) recording contacts allowed to define different clusters of contacts that retrospectively correlated to the epileptogenic zone identified by the clinicians on the basis of traditional visual analysis. The study demonstrates that computer-assisted analysis of HFS-evoked activities may contribute to the definition of the epileptogenic network on intracranial recordings performed in a pre-surgical setting.