Modeling noninvasive neurostimulation in epilepsy as stochastic interference in brain networks

Personalized dynamic network models of the human brain as a future tool for planning and optimizing epilepsy therapy

Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder, with one third of patients not responding to currently available antiepileptic drugs. The proportion of pharmacoresistant epilepsies has remained unchanged for many decades. To cure epilepsy and control seizures requires a paradigm shift in the development of new approaches to epilepsy diagnosis and treatment. Contemporary medicine has benefited from the exponential growth of computational modeling, and the application of network dynamics theory to understanding and treating human brain disorders. In epilepsy, the introduction of these approaches has led to personalized epileptic network modeling that can explore the patient's seizure genesis and predict the functional impact of resection on its individual network's propensity to seize. The application of the dynamic systems approach to neurostimulation therapy of epilepsy allows designing stimulation strategies that consider the patient's seizure dynamics and long-term fluctuations in the stability of their epileptic networks. In this article, we review, in a nontechnical fashion suitable for a broad neuroscientific audience, recent progress in personalized dynamic brain network modeling that is shaping the future approach to the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy.

Mutual Supervised Fusion & Transfer Learning with Interpretable Linguistic Meaning for Social Data Analytics

Social data analytics is often taken as the most commonly used method for community discovery, product recommendations, knowledge graph, etc. In this study, social data are firstly represented in different feature spaces by using various feature extraction algorithms. Then we build a transfer learning model to leverage knowledge from multiple feature spaces. During modeling, since the assumption that the training and the testing data have the same distribution is always true, we give a theorem and its proof which asserts the necessary and sufficient condition for achieving a minimum testing error. We also theoretically demonstrate that maximizing the classification error consistency across different feature spaces can improve the classification performance. Additionally, the cluster assumption derived from semi-supervised learning is introduced to enhance knowledge transfer. Finally, a Tagaki-Sugeno-Kang (TSK) fuzzy system-based learning algorithm is proposed, which can generate interpretable fuzzy rules. Experimental results not only demonstrate the promising social data classification performance of our proposed approach but also show its interpretability which is missing in many other models.

Computational Models in Electroencephalography

Computational models lie at the intersection of basic neuroscience and healthcare applications because they allow researchers to test hypotheses in silico and predict the outcome of experiments and interactions that are very hard to test in reality. Yet, what is meant by “computational model” is understood in many different ways by researchers in different fields of neuroscience and psychology, hindering communication and collaboration. In this review, we point out the state of the art of computational modeling in Electroencephalography (EEG) and outline how these models can be used to integrate findings from electrophysiology, network-level models, and behavior. On the one hand, computational models serve to investigate the mechanisms that generate brain activity, for example measured with EEG, such as the transient emergence of oscillations at different frequency bands and/or with different spatial topographies. On the other hand, computational models serve to design experiments and test hypotheses in silico. The final purpose of computational models of EEG is to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the EEG signal. This is crucial for an accurate interpretation of EEG measurements that may ultimately serve in the development of novel clinical applications.