Epileptogenic focus localization through functional connectivity analysis of the intracranial EEG

摘要: Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent seizures. Around 1% of the worldwide population has epilepsy. Approximately 30% of the patients cannot be adequately cured with anti-epileptic drugs. These patients have, so called, refractory epilepsy. Alternatively these patients can be rendered seizure free by removing the epileptogenic focus, ie the brain region responsible for causing the epileptic seizures. This implies the need for accurate localization of the epileptogenic focus. During the presurgical evaluation the neurologist identifies the epileptogenic focus through visual inspection of the intracranial electroencephalographic (IEEG) signals.An algorithm was developed to localize the epileptogenic focus more accurately based on connectivity analysis of the IEEG signals. Causality analysis was performed on the ictal IEEG in 5 patients. A time-variant multivariate autoregressive (TVAR …