A multistage system to detect epileptiform activity in the EEG

A review of signal processing and machine learning techniques for interictal epileptiform discharge detection

Brain interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs), as one of the hallmarks of epileptic brain, are transient events captured by electroencephalogram (EEG). IEDs are generated by seizure networks, and they occur between seizures (interictal periods). The development of a robust method for IED detection could be highly informative for clinical treatment procedures and epileptic patient management. Since 1972, different machine learning techniques, from template matching to deep learning, have been developed to automatically detect IEDs from scalp EEG (scEEG) and intracranial EEG (iEEG). While the scEEG signals suffer from low information details and high attenuation of IEDs due to the high skull electrical impedance, the iEEG signals recorded using implanted electrodes enjoy higher details and are more suitable for identifying the IEDs. In this review paper, we group IED detection techniques into six categories: (1) template matching, (2) feature representation (mimetic, time-frequency, and nonlinear features), (3) matrix decomposition, (4) tensor factorization, (5) neural networks, and (6) estimation of the iEEG from the concurrent scEEG followed by detection and classification. The methods are compared quantitatively (e.g., in terms of accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity), and their general advantages and limitations are described. Finally, current limitations and possible future research paths related to this field are mentioned.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Detection: Past, Present, and Future

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can produce temporary biochemical imbalance due to leaks through cell membranes or disruption of the axoplasmic flow due to the misalignment of intracellular neurofilaments. If untreated, TBI can lead to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or total disability. Mild TBI (mTBI) accounts for about about 90 percent of all TBI cases. The detection of TBI as soon as it happens is crucial for successful treatment management. Neuroimaging-based tests provide only a structural and functional mapping of the brain with poor temporal resolution. Such tests may not detect mTBI. On the other hand, the electroencephalogram (EEG) provides good spatial resolution and excellent temporal resolution of the brain activities beside its portability and low cost. The objective of this paper is to provide clinicians and scientists with a one-stop source of information to quickly learn about the different technologies used for TBI detection, their advantages and limitations. Our research led us to conclude that even though EEG-based TBI detection is potentially a powerful technology, it is currently not able to detect the presence of a mTBI with high confidence. The focus of the paper is to review existing approaches and provide the reason for the unsuccessful state of EEG-based detection of mTBI.

Fast parametric curve matching (FPCM) for automatic spike detection

Epilepsy is a widely spread neurological disease, whose treatment often requires resection of the pathological cortical tissue. Interictal spike analysis observed in the non-invasively collected EEG or MEG data offers a way to localize epileptogenic cortical structures for surgery planning purposes. While a plethora of automatic spike detection techniques have been developed each with its own assumptions and limitations, non of them is ideal and the best results are achieved when the output of several automatic spike detectors are combined. This is especially true in the low signal-to-noise ratio conditions. To this end we propose a novel biomimetic approach for automatic spike detection based on a constrained mixed spline machinery that we dub as fast parametric curve matching (FPCM). Using the peak-wave shape parametrization, the constrained parametric morphological model is constructed and convolved with the observed multichannel data to very efficiently determine mixed spline parameters corresponding to each time-point in the dataset. Then the logical predicates that directly map to the expected interictal event morphology allow us to accomplish the spike detection task. The results of simulations mimicking typical low SNR scenario show the robustness and high ROC AUC values of the FPCM method as compared to the spike detection performed by the means of more conventional approaches such as wavelet decomposition, template matching or simple amplitude thresholding. Applied to the real MEG and EEG data from the human patients and to ECoG data from the rat, the FPCM technique demonstrates reliable detection of the interictal events and localization of epileptogenic zones concordant with independent conclusions made by the epileptologist. Since the FPCM is computationally light, tolerant to high amplitude artifacts and flexible to accommodate verbalized descriptions of the arbitrary target morphology, it may complement the existing arsenal of means for analysis of noisy interictal datasets.

Long Time Constant May Endorses Sharp Waves and Spikes Than Sharp Transients in Scalp Electroencephalography: A Comparison of Both After-Slow Among Different Time Constant and High-Frequency Activity Analysis

Objective: To clarify whether long time constant (TC) is useful for detecting the after-slow activity of epileptiform discharges (EDs): sharp waves and spikes and for differentiating EDs from sharp transients (Sts).

Methods: We employed 68 after-slow activities preceded by 32 EDs (26 sharp waves and six spikes) and 36 Sts from 52 patients with partial and generalized epilepsy (22 men, 30 women; mean age 39.08 ± 13.13 years) defined by visual inspection. High-frequency activity (HFA) associated with the apical component of EDs and Sts was also investigated to endorse two groups. After separating nine Sts that were labeled by visual inspection but did not fulfill the amplitude criteria for after-slow of Sts, 59 activities (32 EDs and 27 Sts) were analyzed about the total area of after-slow under three TCs (long: 2 s; conventional: 0.3 s; and short: 0.1 s).

Results: Compared to Sts, HFA was found significantly more with the apical component of EDs (p < 0.05). The total area of after-slow in all 32 EDs under TC 2 s was significantly larger than those under TC 0.3 s and 0.1 s (p < 0.001). Conversely, no significant differences were observed in the same parameter of 27 Sts among the three different TCs. Regarding separated nine Sts, the total area of after-slow showed a similar tendency to that of 27 Sts under three different TCs.

Significance: These results suggest that long TC could be useful for selectively endorsing after-slow of EDs and differentiating EDs from Sts. These findings are concordant with the results of the HFA analysis. Visual inspection is also equally good as the total area of after-slow analysis.

A novel multi-class imbalanced EEG signals classification based on the adaptive synthetic sampling (ADASYN) approach

BACKGROUND

Brain signals (EEG-Electroencephalography) are a gold standard frequently used in epilepsy prediction. It is crucial to predict epilepsy, which is common in the community. Early diagnosis is essential to reduce the treatment process of the disease and to keep the process healthier.

METHODS

In this study, a five-classes dataset was used: EEG signals from different individuals, healthy EEG signals from tumor document, EEG signal with epilepsy, EEG signal with eyes closed, and EEG signal with eyes open. Four different methods have been proposed to classify five classes of EEG signals. In the first approach, the EEG signal was first divided into four different bands (beta, alpha, theta, and delta), and then 25 time-domain features were extracted from each band, and the main EEG signal and these extracted features were combined to obtain 125-time domain features (feature extraction). Using the Random Forests classifier, EEG activities were classified into five classes. In the second approach, each One-Against-One (OVO) approach with 125 attributes was split into ten parts, pairwise, and then each piece was classified with the Random Forests classifier. The majority voting scheme was used to combine decisions from the ten classifiers. In the third proposed method, each One-Against-All (OVA) approach with 125 attributes was divided into five parts, and then each piece was classified with the Random Forests classifier. The majority voting scheme was used to combine decisions from the five classifiers. In the fourth proposed approach, each One-Against-All (OVA) approach with 125 attributes was divided into five parts. Since each piece obtained had an imbalanced data distribution, an adaptive synthetic (ADASYN) sampling approach was used to stabilize each piece. Then, each balanced piece was classified with the Random Forests classifier. To combine the decisions obtanied from each classifier, the majority voting scheme has been used.

RESULTS

The first approach achieved 71.90% classification success in classifying five-class EEG signals. The second approach achieved a classification success of 91.08% in classifying five-class EEG signals. The third method achieved 89% success, while the fourth proposed approach achieved 91.72% success. The results obtained show that the proposed fourth approach (the combination of the ADASYN sampling approach and Random Forest Classifier) achieved the best success in classifying five class EEG signals. This proposed method could be used in the detection of epilepsy events in the EEG signals.

Machine learning for detection of interictal epileptiform discharges

The electroencephalogram (EEG) is a fundamental tool in the diagnosis and classification of epilepsy. In particular, Interictal Epileptiform Discharges (IEDs) reflect an increased likelihood of seizures and are routinely assessed by visual analysis of the EEG. Visual assessment is, however, time consuming and prone to subjectivity, leading to a high misdiagnosis rate and motivating the development of automated approaches. Research towards automating IED detection started 45 years ago. Approaches range from mimetic methods to deep learning techniques. We review different approaches to IED detection, discussing their performance and limitations. Traditional machine learning and deep learning methods have yielded the best results so far and their application in the field is still growing. Standardization of datasets and outcome measures is necessary to compare models more objectively and decide which should be implemented in a clinical setting.

Epileptic seizure prediction based on EEG spikes detection of ictal-preictal states

Epileptic seizures are known for their unpredictable nature. However, recent research provides that the transition to seizure event is not random but the result of evidence accumulations. Therefore, a reliable method capable to detect these indications can predict seizures and improve the life quality of epileptic patients. Seizures periods are generally characterized by epileptiform discharges with different changes including spike rate variation according to the shapes, spikes, and the amplitude. In this study, spike rate is used as the indicator to anticipate seizures in electroencephalogram (EEG) signal. Spikes detection step is used in EEG signal during interictal, preictal, and ictal periods followed by a mean filter to smooth the spike number. The maximum spike rate in interictal periods is used as an indicator to predict seizures. When the spike number in the preictal period exceeds the threshold, an alarm is triggered. Using the CHB-MIT database, the proposed approach has ensured 92% accuracy in seizure prediction for all patients.

A review on the pattern detection methods for epilepsy seizure detection from EEG signals

Over several years, research had been conducted for the detection of epileptic seizures to support an automatic diagnosis system to comfort the clinicians' encumbrance. In this regard, a number of research papers have been published for the identification of epileptic seizures. A thorough review of all these papers is required. So, an attempt has been made to review on the pattern detection methods for epilepsy seizure detection from EEG signals. More than 150 research papers have been discussed to determine the techniques for detecting epileptic seizures. Further, the literature review confirms that the pattern recognition techniques required to detect epileptic seizures varies across the electroencephalogram (EEG) datasets of different conditions. This is mostly owing to the fact that EEG detected under different conditions have different characteristics. This consecutively necessitates the identification of the pattern recognition technique to efficiently differentiate EEG epileptic data from the EEG data of various conditions.

Epilepsy detection from EEG signals: a review

Over many decades, research is being attempted for the detection of epileptic seizure to support for automatic diagnosis system to help clinicians from burdensome work. In this respect, an enormous number of research papers is published for identification of epileptic seizure. It is difficult to present a detailed review of all these literature. Therefore, in this paper, an attempt has been made to review the detection of an epileptic seizure. More than 100 research papers have been discussed to discern the techniques for detecting the epileptic seizure. Further, the literature survey shows that the pattern recognition required to detect epileptic seizure varies with different conditions of EEG datasets. This is mainly due to the fact that EEG detected under different conditions has different characteristics. This is, in turn, necessitates the identification of pattern recognition technique to effectively distinguish EEG epileptic data from a various condition of EEG data.

HALF-WAVE SEGMENT FEATURE EXTRACTION OF EEG SIGNALS OF PATIENTS WITH DEPRESSION AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF NEURAL NETWORK CLASSIFIERS

A detailed understanding of key signal characteristics has enabled the use of artificial neural networks (ANN) for feature detection and classification of EEG signals in clinical research. The present study is performed to classify EEG signals of normal and depression patients with wavelet parameters as key input features. The characteristics of depression cannot be made out by visual inspection of EEG records unlike epilepsy which is well characterized by sudden recurrent and transient waveforms. In this study, a comparison is made between the performance of feedforward neural network (FFNN) and probabilistic neural network (PNN) while classifying the EEG signals of normal and depression patients. Classification capabilities of both the methods are validated with the EEG recordings from 30 normal controls and 30 depression patients. One-way ANOVA provided a statistical significant difference between the two classes of EEG signals recorded. Preprocessing for feature extraction is done using discrete wavelet transform (DWT). The time domain and relative wavelet energy (RWE) features calculated from the sub-bands are given as a set of input to the neural network. Another set of feature used independently for training the network is the wavelet entropy (WE). The FFNN achieved a classification accuracy of 100% and PNN gave an accuracy of 58.75% with time domain and wavelet energy as the input features. With wavelet entropy as the input feature, FFNN further showed 98.75% classification accuracy while PNN gave an accuracy of only 46.5%. The results indicate that FFNN with the given input features is more suitable for the classification of EEG signals with mood changing depressive disorders.

Feature selection using angle modulated simulated Kalman filter for peak classification of EEG signals

In the existing electroencephalogram (EEG) signals peak classification research, the existing models, such as Dumpala, Acir, Liu, and Dingle peak models, employ different set of features. However, all these models may not be able to offer good performance for various applications and it is found to be problem dependent. Therefore, the objective of this study is to combine all the associated features from the existing models before selecting the best combination of features. A new optimization algorithm, namely as angle modulated simulated Kalman filter (AMSKF) will be employed as feature selector. Also, the neural network random weight method is utilized in the proposed AMSKF technique as a classifier. In the conducted experiment, 11,781 samples of peak candidate are employed in this study for the validation purpose. The samples are collected from three different peak event-related EEG signals of 30 healthy subjects; (1) single eye blink, (2) double eye blink, and (3) eye movement signals. The experimental results have shown that the proposed AMSKF feature selector is able to find the best combination of features and performs at par with the existing related studies of epileptic EEG events classification.

Evaluation of different time domain peak models using extreme learning machine-based peak detection for EEG signal

Various peak models have been introduced to detect and analyze peaks in the time domain analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. In general, peak model in the time domain analysis consists of a set of signal parameters, such as amplitude, width, and slope. Models including those proposed by Dumpala, Acir, Liu, and Dingle are routinely used to detect peaks in EEG signals acquired in clinical studies of epilepsy or eye blink. The optimal peak model is the most reliable peak detection performance in a particular application. A fair measure of performance of different models requires a common and unbiased platform. In this study, we evaluate the performance of the four different peak models using the extreme learning machine (ELM)-based peak detection algorithm. We found that the Dingle model gave the best performance, with 72 % accuracy in the analysis of real EEG data. Statistical analysis conferred that the Dingle model afforded significantly better mean testing accuracy than did the Acir and Liu models, which were in the range 37–52 %. Meanwhile, the Dingle model has no significant difference compared to Dumpala model.

Spike pattern recognition by supervised classification in low dimensional embedding space

Epileptiform discharges in interictal electroencephalography (EEG) form the mainstay of epilepsy diagnosis and localization of seizure onset. Visual analysis is rater-dependent and time consuming, especially for long-term recordings, while computerized methods can provide efficiency in reviewing long EEG recordings. This paper presents a machine learning approach for automated detection of epileptiform discharges (spikes). The proposed method first detects spike patterns by calculating similarity to a coarse shape model of a spike waveform and then refines the results by identifying subtle differences between actual spikes and false detections. Pattern classification is performed using support vector machines in a low dimensional space on which the original waveforms are embedded by locality preserving projections. The automatic detection results are compared to experts' manual annotations (101 spikes) on a whole-night sleep EEG recording. The high sensitivity (97 %) and the low false positive rate (0.1 min-1), calculated by intra-patient cross-validation, highlight the potential of the method for automated interictal EEG assessment.

Feature selection and classifier parameters estimation for EEG signals peak detection using particle swarm optimization

Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal peak detection is widely used in clinical applications. The peak point can be detected using several approaches, including time, frequency, time-frequency, and nonlinear domains depending on various peak features from several models. However, there is no study that provides the importance of every peak feature in contributing to a good and generalized model. In this study, feature selection and classifier parameters estimation based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) are proposed as a framework for peak detection on EEG signals in time domain analysis. Two versions of PSO are used in the study: (1) standard PSO and (2) random asynchronous particle swarm optimization (RA-PSO). The proposed framework tries to find the best combination of all the available features that offers good peak detection and a high classification rate from the results in the conducted experiments. The evaluation results indicate that the accuracy of the peak detection can be improved up to 99.90% and 98.59% for training and testing, respectively, as compared to the framework without feature selection adaptation. Additionally, the proposed framework based on RA-PSO offers a better and reliable classification rate as compared to standard PSO as it produces low variance model.

Model-based spike detection of epileptic EEG data

Accurate automatic spike detection is highly beneficial to clinical assessment of epileptic electroencephalogram (EEG) data. In this paper, a new two-stage approach is proposed for epileptic spike detection. First, the k-point nonlinear energy operator (k-NEO) is adopted to detect all possible spike candidates, then a newly proposed spike model with slow wave features is applied to these candidates for spike classification. Experimental results show that the proposed system, using the AdaBoost classifier, outperforms the conventional method in both two- and three-class EEG pattern classification problems. The proposed system not only achieves better accuracy for spike detection, but also provides new ability to differentiate between spikes and spikes with slow waves. Though spikes with slow waves occur frequently in epileptic EEGs, they are not used in conventional spike detection. Identifying spikes with slow waves allows the proposed system to have better capability for assisting clinical neurologists in routine EEG examinations and epileptic diagnosis.

Morphology-based automatic seizure detector for intracerebral EEG recordings

In this paper, a new seizure detection system aimed at assisting in a rapid review of prolonged intracerebral EEG recordings is described. It is based on quantifying the sharpness of the waveform, one of the most important electrographic EEG features utilized by experts for an accurate and reliable identification of a seizure. The waveform morphology is characterized by a measure of sharpness as defined by the slope of the half-waves. A train of abnormally sharp waves resulting from subsequent filtering are used to identify seizures. The method was optimized using 145 h of single-channel depth EEG from seven patients, and tested on another 158 h of single-channel depth EEG from another seven patients. Additionally, 725 h of depth EEG from 21 patients was utilized to assess the system performance in a multichannel configuration. Single-channel test data resulted in a sensitivity of 87% and a specificity of 71%. The multichannel test data reported a sensitivity of 81% and a specificity of 58.9%. The new system detected a wide range of seizure patterns that included rhythmic and nonrhythmic seizures of varying length, including those missed by the experts. We also compare the proposed system with a popular commercial system.

Detecting epileptic seizure from scalp EEG using Lyapunov spectrum

One of the inherent weaknesses of the EEG signal processing is noises and artifacts. To overcome it, some methods for prediction of epilepsy recently reported in the literature are based on the evaluation of chaotic behavior of intracranial electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings. These methods reduced noises, but they were hazardous to patients. In this study, we propose using Lyapunov spectrum to filter noise and detect epilepsy on scalp EEG signals only. We determined that the Lyapunov spectrum can be considered as the most expected method to evaluate chaotic behavior of scalp EEG recordings and to be robust within noises. Obtained results are compared to the independent component analysis (ICA) and largest Lyapunov exponent. The results of detecting epilepsy are compared to diagnosis from medical doctors in case of typical general epilepsy.

Feature extraction and recognition of epileptiform activity in EEG by combining PCA with ApEn

This paper proposes a new method for feature extraction and recognition of epileptiform activity in EEG signals. The method improves feature extraction speed of epileptiform activity without reducing recognition rate. Firstly, Principal component analysis (PCA) is applied to the original EEG for dimension reduction and to the decorrelation of epileptic EEG and normal EEG. Then discrete wavelet transform (DWT) combined with approximate entropy (ApEn) is performed on epileptic EEG and normal EEG, respectively. At last, Neyman-Pearson criteria are applied to classify epileptic EEG and normal ones. The main procedure is that the principle component of EEG after PCA is decomposed into several sub-band signals using DWT, and ApEn algorithm is applied to the sub-band signals at different wavelet scales. Distinct difference is found between the ApEn values of epileptic and normal EEG. The method allows recognition of epileptiform activities and discriminates them from the normal EEG. The algorithm performs well at epileptiform activity recognition in the clinic EEG data and offers a flexible tool that is intended to be generalized to the simultaneous recognition of many waveforms in EEG.

Automatic epileptic seizure detection in EEGs based on line length feature and artificial neural networks

About 1% of the people in the world suffer from epilepsy. The main characteristic of epilepsy is the recurrent seizures. Careful analysis of the electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings can provide valuable information for understanding the mechanisms behind epileptic disorders. Since epileptic seizures occur irregularly and unpredictably, automatic seizure detection in EEG recordings is highly required. Wavelet transform (WT) is an effective analysis tool for non-stationary signals, such as EEGs. The line length feature reflects the waveform dimensionality changes and is a measure sensitive to variation of the signal amplitude and frequency. This paper presents a novel method for automatic epileptic seizure detection, which uses line length features based on wavelet transform multiresolution decomposition and combines with an artificial neural network (ANN) to classify the EEG signals regarding the existence of seizure or not. To the knowledge of the authors, there exists no similar work in the literature. A famous public dataset was used to evaluate the proposed method. The high accuracy obtained for three different classification problems testified the great success of the method.

User-guided interictal spike detection

In the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy, long-term monitoring may be required to document and study interictal activities such as interictal spikes. However, visual inspection of the EEG done by an expert is too time consuming and researchers normally resort to automatic detection methods. We describe a new EEG user-guided interictal spike detection algorithm that only requires the user to annotate a few spikes. We use the annotations to build a template that captures the relevant features of spikes, and then use Mean Squared Error (MSE) test to detect all of the other spikes in the recording. The detected events are rank ordered so that the user can easily identify the true spikes and their time of occurrence. The true spikes are then annotated to the EEG signals and reported to the EEG expert for further evaluation. This design provides a compromise between the enormous time commitments necessary to annotate recordings by hand and the inability of fully-automatic spike detection algorithms to account for the variability between subjects. Because spike morphology and spatial distribution change considerably when patients go through cycles of wake and sleep in long-term monitoring, this detection algorithm uses multichannel multiple templates to detect more than one type of event. The algorithm is able to achieve an average sensitivity of 96% and an average of 4.8 false detections/ hour.

Epileptic EEG detection using neural networks and post-classification

Electroencephalogram (EEG) has established itself as an important means of identifying and analyzing epileptic seizure activity in humans. In most cases, identification of the epileptic EEG signal is done manually by skilled professionals, who are small in number. In this paper, we try to automate the detection process. We use wavelet transform for feature extraction and obtain statistical parameters from the decomposed wavelet coefficients. A feed-forward backpropagating artificial neural network (ANN) is used for the classification. We use genetic algorithm for choosing the training set and also implement a post-classification stage using harmonic weights to increase the accuracy. Average specificity of 99.19%, sensitivity of 91.29% and selectivity of 91.14% are obtained.

Detection of signs of brain dysfunction in epileptic children by recognition of transient changes in the correlation of seizure-free EEG

Seizure-free EEG signals recorded from epileptic children were compared with EEG signals recorded from normal children. The comparison was based on the detection of transient events characterized by decrease in the correlation between different traces. For this purpose, a conceptually and mathematically simple method was applied. Two clear and remarkable phenomena, able to quantitatively discriminate between the two groups of subjects, were evidenced, with high statistical significance. In fact, it was observed that: (a) The number of events for the epileptic group was larger; (b) Applying restrictive criteria for event definition, the number of subjects in the epileptic group presenting events was larger. The results support the hypothesis of a decrease in brain correlation in children with epilepsy under treatment. This confirms the efficacy of the EEG signal in evaluating cortical functional differences not visible by visual inspection, independently of the cause (epilepsy or drugs), and demonstrate the specific effectiveness of the analysis method applied.

Detection of focal epileptiform events in the EEG by spatio-temporal dipole clustering

OBJECTIVE

Methods for the detection of epileptiform events can be broadly divided into two main categories: temporal detection methods that exploit the EEG's temporal characteristics, and spatial detection methods that base detection on the results of an implicit or explicit source analysis. We describe how the framework of a spatial detection method was extended to improve its performance by including temporal information. This results in a method that provides (i) automated localization of an epileptogenic focus and (ii) detection of focal epileptiform events in an EEG recording. For the detection, only one threshold value needs to be set.

METHODS

The method comprises five consecutive steps: (1) dipole source analysis in a moving window, (2) automatic selection of focal brain activity, (3) dipole clustering to arrive at the identification of the epileptiform cluster, (4) derivation of a spatio-temporal template of the epileptiform activity, and (5) template matching. Routine EEG recordings from eight paediatric patients with focal epilepsy were labelled independently by two experts. The method was evaluated in terms of (i) ability to identify the epileptic focus, (ii) validity of the derived template, and (iii) detection performance. The clustering performance was evaluated using a leave-one-out cross validation. Detection performance was evaluated using Precision-Recall curves and compared to the performance of two temporal (mimetic and wavelet based) and one spatial (dipole analysis based) detection methods.

RESULTS

The method succeeded in identifying the epileptogenic focus in seven of the eight recordings. For these recordings, the mean distance between the epileptic focus estimated by the method and the region indicated by the labelling of the experts was 8mm. Except for two EEG recordings where the dipole clustering step failed, the derived template corresponded to the epileptiform activity marked by the experts. Over the eight EEGs, the method showed a mean sensitivity and selectivity of 92 and 77%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

The method allows automated localization of the epileptogenic focus and shows good agreement with the region indicated by the labelling of the experts. If the dipole clustering step is successful, the method allows a detection of the focal epileptiform events, and gave a detection performance comparable or better to that of the other methods.

SIGNIFICANCE

The identification and quantification of epileptiform events is of considerable importance in the diagnosis of epilepsy. Our method allows the automatic identification of the epileptic focus, which is of value in epilepsy surgery. The method can also be used as an offline exploration tool for focal EEG activity, displaying the dipole clusters and corresponding time series.

A multistage knowledge-based system for EEG seizure detection in newborn infants

OBJECTIVE

Automatic seizure detection has attracted attention as a method to obtain valuable information concerning the duration, timing, and frequency of seizures. Methods currently used to detect EEG seizures in adults show high false detection rates in neonates because they lack information about specific age-dependent features of normal and pathological EEG and artifacts. This paper describes a novel multistage knowledge-based seizure detection system for newborn infants to identify and classify normal and pathological newborn EEGs as well as seizures with a reduced false detection rate.

METHODS

We developed the system in a way to make comprehensive use of spatial and temporal contextual information obtained from multichannel EEGs. The system development consists of six major stages: (i) EEG data collection and bandpass filtering; (ii) automatic artifact detection; (iii) feature extraction from segments of non-seizure and seizure activities; (iv) feature selection via the relevance and redundancy analysis; (v) EEG classification and pattern recognition using a trained multilayer back-propagation neural network; and (v) knowledge-based decision-making to examine each of possible EEG patterns from a multi-channel perspective. The system was developed and tested with the EEG recordings of 10 newborns aged between 39 and 42 weeks.

RESULTS

The overall sensitivity, selectivity, and average detection rate of the system were 74%, 70.1%, and 79.7%, respectively. The average false detection of 1.55/h was also achieved by the system with a feature reduction up to 80%.

CONCLUSIONS

The expert rule-based decision-making subsystem accompanying the classifier helped to reduce the false detection rate, reject a wide variety of artifacts, and discriminate various patterns of EEG.

SIGNIFICANCE

This paper may serve as a guide for the selection of discriminative features to improve the accuracy of conventional seizure detection systems for routine clinical EEG interpretation and brain activity monitoring in newborns especially those hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care units.

Background activity originating from same area as events in the EEG of paediatric patients with focal epilepsy

The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of apparent non-epileptiform activity arising in the same brain area as epileptiform activity in the EEG of paediatric patients with focal epilepsy. The EEG from eight patients was analyzed by an automated method which detects epochs with a single underlying source having a dipolar potential distribution. The EEG with the highlighted detections was then rated by an EEGer with respect to epileptiform activity. Although EEGer-marked events and computer detections often coincided, in five out of the eight patients a substantial number of other detections were found to arise from the same area as the marked events. The morphology of a high proportion of these other detections did not resemble typical epileptiform activity.

A Kalman filter based methodology for EEG spike enhancement

In this work, we present a methodology for spike enhancement in electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings. Our approach takes advantage of the non-stationarity nature of the EEG signal using a time-varying autoregressive model. The time-varying coefficients of autoregressive model are estimated using the Kalman filter. The results show considerable improvement in signal-to-noise ratio and significant reduction of the number of false positives.

Automatic seizure detection based on time-frequency analysis and artificial neural networks

The recording of seizures is of primary interest in the evaluation of epileptic patients. Seizure is the phenomenon of rhythmicity discharge from either a local area or the whole brain and the individual behavior usually lasts from seconds to minutes. Since seizures, in general, occur infrequently and unpredictably, automatic detection of seizures during long-term electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings is highly recommended. As EEG signals are nonstationary, the conventional methods of frequency analysis are not successful for diagnostic purposes. This paper presents a method of analysis of EEG signals, which is based on time-frequency analysis. Initially, selected segments of the EEG signals are analyzed using time-frequency methods and several features are extracted for each segment, representing the energy distribution in the time-frequency plane. Then, those features are used as an input in an artificial neural network (ANN), which provides the final classification of the EEG segments concerning the existence of seizures or not. We used a publicly available dataset in order to evaluate our method and the evaluation results are very promising indicating overall accuracy from 97.72% to 100%.

Tracking and detection of epileptiform activity in multichannel ictal EEG using signal subspace correlation of seizure source scalp topographies

Conventional methods for monitoring clinical (epileptiform) multichannel electroencephalogram (EEG) signals often involve morphological, spectral or time-frequency analysis on individual channels to determine waveform features for detecting and classifying ictal events (seizures) and inter-ictal spikes. Blind source separation (BSS) methods, such as independent component analysis (ICA), are increasingly being used in biomedical signal processing and EEG analysis for extracting a set of underlying source waveforms and sensor projections from multivariate time-series data, some of which reflect clinically relevant neurophysiological (epileptiform) activity. The work presents an alternative spatial approach to source tracking and detection in multichannel EEG that exploits prior knowledge of the spatial topographies of the sensor projections associated with the target sources. The target source sensor projections are obtained by ICA decomposition of data segments containing representative examples of target source activity, e.g. a seizure or ocular artifact. Source tracking and detection are then based on the subspace correlation between individual target sensor projections and the signal subspace over a moving window. Different window lengths and subspace correlation threshold criteria reflect transient or sustained target source activity. To study the behaviour and potential application of this spatial source tracking and detection approach, the method was used to detect (transient) ocular artifacts and (sustained) seizure activity in two segments of 25-channel EEG data recorded from one epilepsy patient on two separate occasions, with promising and intuitive results.

EEG Transient Event Detection and Classification Using Association Rules

In this paper, a methodology for the automated detection and classification of transient events in electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings is presented. It is based on association rule mining and classifies transient events into four categories: epileptic spikes, muscle activity, eye blinking activity, and sharp alpha activity. The methodology involves four stages: 1) transient event detection; 2) clustering of transient events and feature extraction; 3) feature discretization and feature subset selection; and 4) association rule mining and classification of transient events. The methodology is evaluated using 25 EEG recordings, and the best obtained accuracy was 87.38%. The proposed approach combines high accuracy with the ability to provide interpretation for the decisions made, since it is based on a set of association rules.

Tracking and detection of epileptiform activity in multichannel ictal EEG using signal subspace correlation of seizure source scalp topographies

Conventional methods for monitoring clinical (epileptiform) multichannel electroencephalogram (EEG) signals often involve morphological, spectral or time-frequency analysis on individual channels to determine waveform features for detecting and classifying ictal events (seizures) and inter-ictal spikes. Blind source separation (BSS) methods, such as independent component analysis (ICA), are increasingly being used in biomedical signal processing and EEG analysis for extracting a set of underlying source waveforms and sensor projections from multivariate time-series data, some of which reflect clinically relevant neurophysiological (epileptiform) activity. The work presents an alternative spatial approach to source tracking and detection in multichannel EEG that exploits prior knowledge of the spatial topographies of the sensor projections associated with the target sources. The target source sensor projections are obtained by ICA decomposition of data segments containing representative examples of target source activity, e.g. a seizure or ocular artifact. Source tracking and detection are then based on the subspace correlation between individual target sensor projections and the signal subspace over a moving window. Different window lengths and subspace correlation threshold criteria reflect transient or sustained target source activity. To study the behaviour and potential application of this spatial source tracking and detection approach, the method was used to detect (transient) ocular artifacts and (sustained) seizure activity in two segments of 25-channel EEG data recorded from one epilepsy patient on two separate occasions, with promising and intuitive results.

Automated neonatal seizure detection: A multistage classification system through feature selection based on relevance and redundancy analysis

OBJECTIVE

Automatic seizure detection obtains valuable information concerning duration and timing of seizures. Commonly used methods for EEG seizure detection in adults are inadequate for the same task in neonates because they lack the specific age-dependant characteristics of normal and pathological EEG. This paper presents an automatic seizure detection system for newborn with focus on feature selection via relevance and redundancy analysis.

METHODS

Two linear correlation-based feature selection methods and the ReliefF method were applied to parameterized EEG data acquired from six neonates aged between 39 and 42 weeks. To evaluate the effectiveness of these methods, features extracted from seizure and non-seizure segments were ranked by these methods. The optimized ranked feature subsets were fed into a backpropagation neural network for classifying. Its performance was used as indicator for the feature selection effectiveness.

RESULTS

Results showed an average seizure detection rate of 91%, an average non-seizure detection rate of 95%, an average false rejection rate of 95% and an overall average detection rate of 93% with a false seizure detection rate of 1.17/h.

CONCLUSIONS

This good performance in detecting newborn ictal activities has been achieved based on an optimized subset of 30 features determined by the ReliefF-based detector, which corresponds to a reduction of the number of features of up to 75%.

SIGNIFICANCE

The presented approach takes into account specific characteristics of normal and pathological EEG. Thus, it can improve the accuracy of conventional seizure detection systems in newborn.

Epileptic spike detection using a Kalman filter based approach

The electroencephalogram (EEG) consists of an underlying background process with superimposed transient nonstationarities such as epileptic spikes (ESs). The detection of ESs in the EEG is of particular importance in the diagnosis of epilepsy. In this paper a new approach for detecting ESs in EEG recordings is presented. It is based on a time-varying autoregressive model (TVAR) that makes use of the nonstationarities of the EEG signal. The autoregressive (AR) parameters are estimated via Kalman filtering (KF). In our method, the EEG signal is first preprocessed to accentuate ESs and attenuate background activity, and then passed through a thresholding function to determine ES locations. The proposed method is evaluated using simulated signals as well as real inter-ictal EEGs.

Multichannel Fusion Models for the Parametric Classification of Differential Brain Activity

This paper introduces parametric multichannel fusion models to exploit the different but complementary brain activity information recorded from multiple channels in order to accurately classify differential brain activity into their respective categories. A parametric weighted decision fusion model and two parametric weighted data fusion models are introduced for the classification of averaged multichannel evoked potentials (EPs). The decision fusion model combines the independent decisions of each channel classifier into a decision fusion vector and a parametric classifier is designed to determine the EP class from the discrete decision fusion vector. The data fusion models include the weighted EP-sum model in which the fusion vector is a linear combination of the multichannel EPs and the EP-concatenation model in which the fusion vector is a vector-concatenation of the multichannel EPs. The discrete Karhunen-Loeve transform (DKLT) is used to select features for each channel classifier and from each data fusion vector. The difficulty in estimating the probability density function (PDF) parameters from a small number of averaged EPs is identified and the class conditional PDFs of the feature vectors of averaged EPs are, therefore, derived in terms of the PDFs of the single-trial EPs. Multivariate parametric classifiers are developed for each fusion strategy and the performances of the different strategies are compared by classifying 14-channel EPs collected from five subjects involved in making explicit match/mismatch comparisons between sequentially presented stimuli. It is shown that the performance improves by incorporating weights in the fusion rules and that the best performance is obtained using multichannel EP concatenation. It is also noted that the fusion strategies introduced are also applicable to other problems involving the classification of multicategory multivariate signals generated from multiple sources.