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Correcting for physiological ripples improves epileptic focus identification and outcome prediction

Authors:
  • CHU de Québec-Centre Mère-Enfant Soleil

Abstract

Objective The integration of high-frequency oscillations (HFOs; ripples [80–250 Hz], fast ripples [250–500 Hz]) in epilepsy evaluation is hampered by physiological HFOs, which cannot be reliably differentiated from pathological HFOs. We evaluated whether defining abnormal HFO rates by statistical comparison to region-specific physiological HFO rates observed in the healthy brain improves identification of the epileptic focus and surgical outcome prediction. Methods We detected HFOs in 151 consecutive patients who underwent stereo-electroencephalography and subsequent resective epilepsy surgery at two tertiary epilepsy centers. We compared how HFOs identified the resection cavity and predicted seizure-free outcome using two thresholds from the literature (HFO rate > 1/min; 50% of the total number of a patient's HFOs) and three thresholds based on normative rates from the Montreal Neurological Institute Open iEEG Atlas (https://mni-open-ieegatlas.research.mcgill.ca/): global Atlas threshold, regional Atlas threshold, and regional + 10% threshold after regional Atlas correction. Results Using ripples, the regional + 10% threshold performed best for focus identification (77.3% accuracy, 27% sensitivity, 97.1% specificity, 80.6% positive predictive value [PPV], 78.2% negative predictive value [NPV]) and outcome prediction (69.5% accuracy, 58.6% sensitivity, 76.3% specificity, 60.7% PPV, 74.7% NPV). This was an improvement for focus identification (+1.1% accuracy, +17.0% PPV; p < .001) and outcome prediction (+12.0% sensitivity, +1.0% PPV; p = .05) compared to the 50% threshold. The improvement was particularly marked for foci in cortex, where physiological ripples are frequent (outcome: +35.3% sensitivity, +5.3% PPV; p = .014). In these cases, the regional + 10% threshold outperformed fast ripple rate > 1/min (+3.6% accuracy, +26.5% sensitivity, +21.6% PPV; p < .001) and seizure onset zone (+13.5% accuracy, +29.4% sensitivity, +17.0% PPV; p < .05–.01) for outcome prediction. Normalization did not improve the performance of fast ripples. Significance Defining abnormal HFO rates by statistical comparison to rates in healthy tissue overcomes an important weakness in the clinical use of ripples. It improves focus identification and outcome prediction compared to standard HFO measures, increasing their clinical applicability.
Epilepsia. 2021;00:1–14.
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1
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/epi
Received: 8 July 2021
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Revised: 30 November 2021
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Accepted: 30 November 2021
DOI: 10.1111/epi.17145
FULL- LENGTH ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Correcting for physiological ripples improves epileptic focus
identification and outcome prediction
Willemiek J. E. M.Zweiphenning1,2
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Nicolásvon Ellenrieder1
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FrançoisDubeau1
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LaurenceMartineau3
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LorellaMinotti3
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Jeffery A.Hall1
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StephanChabardes4
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RoyDudley1
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PhilippeKahane3
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JeanGotman1
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BirgitFrauscher1
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution-NonCo mmercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
© 2021 The Authors. Epilepsia published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International League Against Epilepsy
1Montreal Neurological Institute and
Hospital, McGill University, Montreal,
Quebec, Canada
2University Medical Center Utrecht,
Utrecht University, Utrecht, the
Netherlands
3Department of Neurology, Grenoble-
Alpes University Hospital and
Grenoble- Alpes University, Grenoble,
France
4Department of Neurosurgery,
Grenoble- Alpes University Hospital
and Grenoble- Alpes University,
Grenoble, France
Correspondence
Willemiek Zweiphenning, Department
of Neurology and Neurosurgery,
University Medical Center Utrecht, HP
C03.1.31 Heidelberglaan 100, Utrecht
3584 CX, the Netherlands.
Email: W.J.E.Zweiphenning@
umcutrecht.nl
Birgit Frauscher, Analytical
Neurophysiology Lab, Montreal
Neurological Instutue and Hospital,
McGill University, 3801 University
Street, Montreal H3A 2B4, QC, Canada.
Email: birgit.frauscher@mcgill.ca
Funding information
Canadian Institute of Health
Research, Grant/Award Number:
FDN- 143208; Neurodis Foundation;
Fonds de Recherche du Québec -
Santé; Foundation De Drie Lichten;
Foundation Jo Kolk Studiefonds
Abstract
Objective: The integration of high- frequency oscillations (HFOs; ripples [80–
250Hz], fast ripples [250– 500Hz]) in epilepsy evaluation is hampered by physi-
ological HFOs, which cannot be reliably differentiated from pathological HFOs.
We evaluated whether defining abnormal HFO rates by statistical comparison to
region- specific physiological HFO rates observed in the healthy brain improves
identification of the epileptic focus and surgical outcome prediction.
Methods: We detected HFOs in 151 consecutive patients who underwent stereo-
electroencephalography and subsequent resective epilepsy surgery at two tertiary
epilepsy centers. We compared how HFOs identified the resection cavity and pre-
dicted seizure- free outcome using two thresholds from the literature (HFO rate >
1/min; 50% of the total number of a patient's HFOs) and three thresholds based
on normative rates from the Montreal Neurological Institute Open iEEG Atlas
(https://mni- open- ieega tlas.resea rch.mcgill.ca/): global Atlas threshold, regional
Atlas threshold, and regional + 10% threshold after regional Atlas correction.
Results: Using ripples, the regional + 10% threshold performed best for focus iden-
tification (77.3% accuracy, 27% sensitivity, 97.1% specificity, 80.6% positive predictive
value [PPV], 78.2% negative predictive value [NPV]) and outcome prediction (69.5%
accuracy, 58.6% sensitivity, 76.3% specificity, 60.7% PPV, 74.7% NPV). This was an
improvement for focus identification (+1.1% accuracy, +17.0% PPV; p<.001) and
outcome prediction (+12.0% sensitivity, +1.0% PPV; p=.05) compared to the 50%
threshold. The improvement was particularly marked for foci in cortex, where phys-
iological ripples are frequent (outcome: +35.3% sensitivity, +5.3% PPV; p=.014).
In these cases, the regional + 10% threshold outperformed fast ripple rate > 1/min
(+3.6% accuracy, +26.5% sensitivity, +21.6% PPV; p<.001) and seizure onset zone
(+13.5% accuracy, +29.4% sensitivity, +17.0% PPV; p<.05– .01) for outcome predic-
tion. Normalization did not improve the performance of fast ripples.
Significance: Defining abnormal HFO rates by statistical comparison to rates
in healthy tissue overcomes an important weakness in the clinical use of ripples.
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ZWEIPHENNING et al.
1
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INTRODUCTION
High- frequency oscillations (HFOs), subdivided into rip-
ples (80– 250Hz) and fast ripples (FRs; 250– 500Hz), are a
promising biomarker for epileptogenic tissue. Most stud-
ies have reported results at the group level, with higher
HFO rates in epileptogenic than nonepileptogenic tissue,
and a better correlation between favorable outcome and
removal of tissue generating HFOs than removal of tissue
generating interictal spikes or that is part of the seizure
onset zone (SOZ).1– 3 FRs recorded after resection have
been linked to seizure recurrence.4– 7
Prospective studies reported conflicting results on
the performance of HFOs to identify the SOZ and pre-
dict good outcome at the individual patient level.8– 10
They showed patient examples where the performance
of ripples was hindered by the detection of presum-
ably physiological ripples.8,10 That HFOs occur under
physiological conditions is a challenge when assessing
their validity as a biomarker for epilepsy. Physiological
HFOs occur predominantly in the ripple range, at rest
and linked to cognitive processes or evoked by tasks or
stimuli.11– 19 Pathological and physiological HFOs largely
overlap in their signal properties, and there is no reliable
way to separate them.17,20,21 The Montreal Neurological
Institute (MNI) Open iEEG Atlas project (https://mni-
open- ieega tlas.resea rch.mcgill.ca/)22,23studied HFOs in
carefully selected stereoelectroencephalographic (SEEG)
channels with normal electroencephalographic (EEG)
activity.24 The rate of physiological ripples varied sub-
stantially across different regions, with the highest val-
ues in the occipital, sensorimotor, and mesiotemporal
regions. Physiological FRs were rare, even in eloquent
cortical areas.
This study evaluated whether "correcting" for physio-
logical HFOs improves identification of the epileptic focus
and prediction of surgical outcome. We hypothesized that
using the statistical distribution of normative physiologi-
cal HFO rates for each region to define rates that are too
high for the physiological range, and therefore most likely
to be pathological, would increase the performance of this
marker. We expected the improvement to be most pro-
nounced in patients with a focus in or close to brain areas
generating high rates of physiological ripples. Because
physiological FRs are rare, we expected no improvement
for FRs.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1
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Patient selection and data
acquisition
We screened 202 consecutive patients undergoing SEEG
investigation followed by resective open epilepsy surgery
at Grenoble- Alpes University Hospital (CHUGA) or the
MNI between January 2009 and January 2019. For selec-
tion criteria and flowchart of patients' inclusion see Figure
1. This study was approved by the MNI Institutional
Review Board. All patients signed written informed
consent.
The MNI recordings were acquired with Harmonie
(Stellate) or Nihon- Kohden EEG amplifiers at a sampling
rate of 2000Hz, using homemade MNI or commercial
DIXI electrodes. The CHUGA recordings were acquired
with Micromed EEG amplifiers at sampling rates of 512,
1024, or 2048Hz, using DIXI or, in a few occasions, ALCIS
electrodes.
2.2
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Data selection and HFO analysis
Analogous to the MNI Open iEEG Atlas, we automati-
cally detected HFOs in visually selected 20- min sections
from non- rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep stages N2/
It improves focus identification and outcome prediction compared to standard
HFO measures, increasing their clinical applicability.
KEYWORDS
biomarker, epilepsy surgery, high- frequency oscillations, interictal, normative values
Key Points
• Normalization significantly improved the abil-
ity of ripples to identify the epileptic focus and
to predict seizure freedom
• The regional + 10% threshold exhibited the best
performance
• Normalization is particularly useful in patients
with a focus in cortex with high physiological
ripple rates
• Ripple normalization outperformed fast ripple
rate > 1/min and seizure onset zone in patients
with a focus in ripple- rich cortex
• Normalization did not improve the perfor-
mance of fast ripples in identifying the epileptic
focus or predicting seizure freedom
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ZWEIPHENNING et al.
N3,24 as this state shows the highest HFO rates25– 27 and
best identifies the epileptic focus in the interictal EEG.28 If
possible, we chose epochs in the first sleep cycle, because
it was shown to contain higher pathological HFO rates.29
We selected epochs 2h away from focal or 6h from gen-
eralized seizures. Ripples (80– 250Hz) were analyzed in all
subjects. FRs (>250Hz) were analyzed in subjects whose
recordings had a sampling frequency greater than 1000Hz.
The detector is available at https://mni- open- ieega tlas.
resea rch.mcgill.ca/.12,29,30 It identifies increases in power
with respect to the background in narrow frequency bands,
with a duration longer than four oscillations plus the effec-
tive response time of the filters (equiripple finite impulse
response filters of order 508). Results of HFO analysis were
not used for clinical decision- making.
2.3
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Image coregistration and
localization of electrode contacts
Registration to stereotaxic space and anatomical localiza-
tion of electrode contacts and channels were performed as
done previously.22– 24 Using MINC tools (http://www.bic.
mni.mcgill.ca/Servi cesSo ftwar e/MINC) and the IBIS plat-
form, patient- specific peri- implantation and postsurgical
images were linearly registered to the preimplantation
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and electrode posi-
tions were marked in the coregistered images. A nonlin-
ear transformation from the preimplantation image to the
ICBM152 2009c template was obtained and applied to the
coordinates to represent them in the common MNI ster-
eotaxic space. We used the same 17 regions as the MNI
Open iEEG Atlas to correct for region- specific physiologi-
cal HFO rates.24
2.4
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Classification of channels
A bipolar channel was classified as resected if both contacts
were resected on the coregistered postresection image. To
account for sagging, coregistration error, and partial con-
tact resection, contacts in or in the close vicinity (<5mm)
of the cavity were considered resected.28,31 SOZ channels
were identified by consensus of two neurophysiologists
FIGURE Flowchart of the patient selection process. The reasons for exclusion merged in others are no report available (n=3), no
visible interictal electroencephalographic changes at seizure onset (n=1), and premature termination of stereoelectroencephalogram
(SEEG) due to self- removal of electrodes (n=1). In nine of the 151 included patients, we could only select 20min of non- rapid eye
movement (NREM) sleep containing one or more electrographic seizure. In five, we could only select 20min of NREM sleep <2h away
from a focal seizure. In one other patient, we could only select 10min of NREM sleep. We decided to include these patients to be as
generalizable as possible. The segments with seizures themselves were excluded. CHUGA, Grenoble- Alpes University Hospital; MNI,
Montreal Neurological Institute
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ZWEIPHENNING et al.
based on the first unequivocal visible signal changes at
seizure onset independent of frequency content.32
To determine where each bipolar channel was record-
ing from, we modeled each contact as a sphere of 10- mm
radius and computed the percentage of each Atlas' gray
matter region within this volume, assigning weights that
decreased with the square of the distance from the cen-
ter. We then averaged the percentages over the two con-
tacts, and used up to three regions showing the highest
percentages.
2.5
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Thresholds
We compared two thresholds for automatic HFO detec-
tion frequently used in the literature with three thresh-
olds based on the normative values of the MNI Open iEEG
Atlas.24 Studies in the literature frequently use (1) HFO
rate > 1/min5– 7,10 or (2) a majority threshold relative to
the total or maximum number of HFOs in a patient.8,9,33– 42
We used HFO rate > 1/min and above a threshold of 50%
relative to the total number of HFOs in a patient to com-
pare to our new HFO Atlas- based thresholds.
We computed three thresholds using the statistical
distribution of normative physiological HFO rates24: (1) a
global Atlas threshold, (2) a regional Atlas threshold, and
(3) a regional Atlas correction followed by a 10% thresh-
old (regional +10%). The global Atlas threshold was de-
fined as the 90th percentile value of the distribution of
normative HFO rates of all regions combined. This cutoff
is commonly used in biomedical statistics to objectively
set a threshold; using the 85th or 95th percentile did not
change our results (data not shown). We subtracted this
value from the automatically detected HFO rates. If the
subtraction resulted in a negative value, it was set to zero.
The regional Atlas threshold was defined as the region-
specific 90th percentile values of the normative rates. If a
bipolar channel was recording from more than one region,
the threshold was obtained by a weighted average of the
region- specific thresholds, the weight of each region being
determined by the percentage of each region contributing
to that channel. The regional+10% threshold was calcu-
lated by removing the channels that had 10% of the total
number of HFOs after regional correction. This was done
to eliminate channels only marginally above physiological
HFO levels; using a 5% or 15% cutoff did not change our
results (data not shown).
Six hundred seven bipolar channels (5% total ripple
channels) of 49 patients for ripples, and 299 bipolar chan-
nels (5% total FR channels) of 23 patients for FRs were
also part of the MNI Open iEEG Atlas. For these patients,
we recalculated the regional Atlas thresholds excluding
the values from that patient, and used these corrected
values for further calculation. The regional Atlas thresh-
old for every patient included in the Atlas is therefore in-
dependent of that patient's normative values.
2.6
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Surgical outcome
Outcome was determined according to the Engel classifi-
cation43 from the most recent follow- up 1year after sur-
gery, and dichotomized into seizure- free (Engel IA) and
non- seizure- free (Engel IB).
2.7
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Statistical analyses
We tested for differences in demographic information and
group- level differences in event rates between resected and
nonresected channels of seizure- free and non- seizure- free
patients using Mann– Whitney U (MWU), chi- squared, or
Fisher exact tests depending on the type and distribution
of the variable.
To evaluate whether physiological HFO correction im-
proved identification of the epileptic focus, we compared
the HFO region to the resection cavity. We defined chan-
nels with HFOs above threshold that were or were not
resected as true positive (TP) or false positive (FP), and
channels without HFOs or with HFOs below threshold
that were or were not resected as false negative (FN) or
true negative (TN). We assessed the performance of ripples
and FRs above threshold to identify the resection cavity by
computing accuracy ([TP+TN]/[TP+TN+FP+FN]),
sensitivity (TP/[TP + FN]), specificity (TN/[TN+FP]),
positive predictive value (PPV; TP/[TP+FP]), and nega-
tive predictive value (NPV; TN/[TN+FN]). Because only
in Engel IA outcome is the epileptic focus entirely inside
the resection cavity, we separatly analyzed seizure- free
and non- seizure- free patients. We tested for differences in
performance measures between thresholds, by applying a
Wilcoxon signed- rank test to the performance measures
of all pairs of different thresholds within the two outcome
groups and corrected for multiple comparisons (false dis-
covery rate [FDR]<0.05 corrected for 50 comparisons:
10 threshold- pairs times five performance measures). We
tested for differences in performance measures between
seizure- free and non- seizure- free patients using an MWU
test (FDR < 0.05, five comparisons: five performance
measures). We expected that correcting for region- specific
rates of physiological ripples would increase specificity
and PPV for identification of the focus. We expected a
larger increase in PPV in seizure- free patients.
To evaluate whether physiological HFO correction im-
proved prediction of seizure- free outcome, we allowed
residual HFOs in a maximum of 5% of the nonresected
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ZWEIPHENNING et al.
channels. We used definitions analogous to the ones de-
scribed above, but now defined them at the patient level.
Patients without HFOs above threshold and good or poor
outcome were considered FN or FP, respectively. To test
for differences in performance measures between thresh-
olds, we applied a Cochran Q test to the proportions of
true and false predictions with different thresholds. If the
Cochran Q test was significant after correcting for multi-
ple comparisons (p<.05, five comparisons: five perfor-
mance measures), we performed post hoc McNemar tests
to identify which pairs of thresholds were significantly
different. We expected that correcting for region- specific
rates of physiological ripples would increase sensitivity
and NPV at the outcome level.
We expected greater improvement in performance in
patients with a focus in areas generating high rates of
physiological ripples according to the MNI Open iEEG
Atlas (namely occipital, sensorimotor, and mesiotemporal
regions, referred to as ripple- rich cortex) than in patients
with a focus in areas generating low rates of physiologi-
cal ripples (ripple- poor cortex).24 Therefore, we compared
tissue and outcome- level predictions between patients
with a focus in ripple- rich and ripple- poor cortex using
Cochran Q combined with McNemar and Fisher exact
tests corrected for multiple comparisons.
The current gold standard to define the area to resect is
the SOZ. As a last step, we compared the performance of
the best corrected HFO measure to the performance of the
SOZ on tissue and outcome level.
3
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RESULTS
The study sample consisted of 151 patients (Table S1).
Figure 2 displays the different thresholds examined and
the group- level results for ripples. It shows the ripple
rates in resected and nonresected channels of seizure-
free and non- seizure- free patients, and indicates the data
used when evaluating the different thresholds. In both
seizure- free and non- seizure- free patients, the major-
ity of channels with high ripple rates were resected. In
non- seizure- free patients there were more nonresected
channels with ripples above the 50% and regional+10%
threshold than in seizure- free patients. Table S2 provides
the median values and p- values.
3.1
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Ripples
3.1.1
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Identification of the resected tissue
The application of any threshold significantly improved
accuracy, specificity, and PPV to identify the resected
tissue compared to ripple rate > 1/min (Figure 3A, Table
1A). Using the regional+ 10% threshold resulted in the
highest accuracy, specificity, and PPV in both outcome
groups (seizure- free group: accuracy = 77.3%, specificity
= 97.1%, PPV = 80.6%; non- seizure- free group: accuracy
= 75.4%, specificity = 93.3%, PPV = 42.9%). In seizure- free
patients, this was a 1.1% increase in accuracy (p<.001),
and a 17.0% increase in PPV (p<.001) compared to the 50%
threshold (Table 1A). In non- seizure- free patients, this
corresponded to a 4.6% increase in specificity (p=.047),
and no difference in accuracy and PPV compared to the
50% threshold. Accuracy using ripple rate > 1/min, speci-
ficity using the 50% and regional+10% thresholds, and
PPV using all thresholds were higher in seizure- free com-
pared to non- seizure- free patients (Figure 3A).
There was a larger increase in PPV when moving from
the standard thresholds to the regional+ 10% threshold
in seizure- free patients, with a focus in ripple- rich (re-
gional+10% vs. >1/min: +62.2%, p=.005; regional+10%
vs. 50%: +40%, p = .015) rather than ripple- poor cortex
(regional + 10% vs. >1/min: +38.3%, p< .001; and re-
gional+10% vs. 50%: +8.3%, p=.014).
3.1.2
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Predicting Engel IA outcome
The application of any threshold significantly increased
the sensitivity, PPV, and NPV, and decreased the specific-
ity of ripples to predict seizure freedom compared to using
ripple rate > 1/min (Figure 3B1, Table S3A). Of the three
normalization thresholds, the regional + 10% thresh-
old resulted in the highest accuracy (69.5%), sensitivity
(58.6%), and NPV (74.7%), and the regional Atlas thresh-
old resulted in the highest specificity (84.9%) and PPV
(63.2%). Comparing the regional+10% to the 50% thresh-
old showed a trend toward higher sensitivity (+12.0%,
p=.05) and PPV (+1.0%, p=.05).
There was an upward trend in accuracy, sensitivity,
PPV, and NPV, and a downward trend in specificity when
moving from the standard to the regional+10% thresh-
old in patients with a focus in ripple- rich, but not in pa-
tients with a focus in ripple- poor cortex (Figure 3B2). In
patients with a focus in ripple- rich cortex, the sensitivity
and PPV using the regional+10% threshold were signifi-
cantly higher than with the 50% threshold (sensitivity =
+35.3%, p=.014; PPV = +5.3%, p=.014). In patients with
a focus in ripple- poor cortex, the 50% and regional+10%
thresholds resulted in comparable performance. Using the
regional+10% threshold, there was a trend toward higher
sensitivity and NPV to predict seizure freedom in patients
with a focus in ripple- rich than ripple- poor cortex (sensi-
tivity = 76.5% vs. 51.2%, p=.089; NPV = 86.7% vs. 69.2%,
p = .080). Figure 4shows an example of a seizure- free
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ZWEIPHENNING et al.
patient with an epileptic focus in ripple- rich cortex (A),
where normalization improves prediction, and a seizure-
free patient with an epileptic focus in ripple- poor cortex
(B), where the 50% and all normalization thresholds work.
3.1.3
|
Patient level classification of
seizure outcome
Thirty- four of the 58 (58.6%) seizure- free patients were
correctly classified using the regional + 10% threshold.
Twelve of the 24 incorrectly classified seizure- free patients
had residual ripples in 6%– 10% of the nonresected chan-
nels, which was slightly more than the allowed 5% cutoff.
In all 12 patients, >50% of the channels identified by the
regional + 10% threshold were included in the resection.
All had the electrodes positioned relatively close together,
recording from brain tissue very close to the subsequently
resected tissue (Figure 5A). Ten of the 24 incorrectly classi-
fied seizure- free patients had a separate ripple focus distant
from the resection (Figure 5B). These secondary foci were
predominantly located in central, parietal, and occipital
areas. Eight of these 10 patients had an MRI abnormality
(n=6) or positron emission tomography (PET) hypome-
tabolism (n=2) in these regions. The remaining two incor-
rectly classified seizure- free patients had ripples above the
50% threshold in central or occipital areas that were not re-
sected; these ripples were below the region- specific normali-
zation threshold and therefore resulted in no HFOs using
the regional and regional+10% thresholds.
FIGURE Visualization of the different thresholds examined in this study. Violin plots show the raw ripple rates (A, C, E) and ripple
rates relative to a patient's total ripples (B, D) in resected (dark color) and nonresected (light color) tissue in seizure- free (SF; teal) and
non- seizure- free (nonSF; red) outcome patients. The colored blocks cover the data points used when evaluating the thresholds (indicated
with colored dashed lines) examined in this study: raw ripple rate > 1/min (A; dark blue), 50% of the patient's total ripple rate (B; light
blue), the global Atlas threshold (C; yellow), the regional Atlas threshold (E; green), and 10% of the patient's total ripple rate remaining after
regional Atlas correction (D; orange). The global Atlas threshold is calculated as the 90th percentile value of the normative rates of all 17
high- frequency oscillation (HFO) Atlas regions combined. The regional Atlas threshold is calculated as the weighted average of the region-
specific 90th percentile value of the normative rates obtained from the Montreal Neurological Institute Open iEEG Atlas Project from which
an electrode channel is recording. The 17 HFO Atlas regions are indicated on the x- axis in E. SOZ, seizure onset zone
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ZWEIPHENNING et al.
FIGURE Performance of (normalized) ripples, fast ripple (FR) rate of >1/min, and the seizure onset zone (SOZ) to identify the
resected tissue (A) or to predict seizure freedom (B). (A) Violin plots of the accuracy (1), specificity (2), and positive predictive value (PPV;
3) of ripples above different thresholds and the SOZ (x- axis) to delineate the resected tissue in seizure- free (teal) and non- seizure- free (red)
patients. The dots represent the performance values of the individual patients. The black dots in the thicker blue or red lines show the
median and interquartile range. Significant differences in performance values between the thresholds within the seizure- free or non- seizure-
free outcome groups are indicated with teal or red significance bars. Significant differences in performance values between seizure- free and
non- seizure- free patients are indicated with black significance bars. The number of filled circles indicates the level of significance: one = p<.05,
two = p<.01, and three = p<.001. A tilde indicates a trend: p=.05– .1. (B) Line plot indicating the change in accuracy (red), sensitivity
(blue), specificity (green), PPV (purple), and negative predictive value (NPV; orange) of ripples with increasingly sophisticated degrees of
thresholding and the SOZ (x- axis) to predict seizure- free outcome for all patients (1), and separately for patients with a focus in ripple- rich
(2A) and ripple- poor (2B) cortex. Significant differences in performance values between thresholds are indicated with colored significance
bars. The number of filled circles indicates the level of significance: one = p<.05, two = p<.01, and three = p<.001. A tilde indicates a
trend: p=.05– .1
8
|
ZWEIPHENNING et al.
TABLE Median values of performance measures of ripples above the different thresholds, FR rate > 1/min (B), or SOZ (C) for predicting the resected tissue in seizure- free and non-
seizure- free patients, overall and grouped by location of the epileptogenic focus in ripple- rich versus ripple- poor cortex
Performance
measure Subgroup
Accuracy Sensitivity Specificity PPV NPV
SF nSF p, SF vs. nSF SF nSF p, SF vs. nSF SF nSF p, SF vs. nSF SF nSF p, SF vs. nSF SF nSF p, SF vs. nSF
Ripples above the different thresholds
Rate>1/min All 56.8 48.1 .043a85.2 83.3 .714 47.7 39.2 .077b37.3 25.8 .016a91.1 89.5 .958
RRC 54.0 47.8 .187 65.2 80.0 .907 52.6 43.0 .317 37.8 22.7 .007a78.6 90.5 .140
RPC 57.7 48.7 .042a90.0 87.7 .919 45.5 39.0 .138 36.7 27.9 .339 92.0 88.9 .561
50% All 76.2 74.3 .355 27.3 24.2 .682 94.3 88.7 .002a63.6 41.2 .002a77.5 81.0 .958
RRC 72.5 76.2 .067b20.0 25.0 .907 94.5 91.9 .083b60.0 40.0 .023a70.3 83.0 .012a
RPC 78.8 71.7 .042a29.4 23.7 .216 94.1 86.9 .008a66.7 42.0 .017a82.7 79.4 .622
Global All 77.0 75.5 .355 25.7 20.0 .099b95.5 92.1 .063b62.8 41.7 .004a78.9 81.8 .958
RRC 72.1 77.8 .129 21.4 20.0 .907 94.6 93.1 .317 66.7 46.7 .047a75.8 83.7 .012a
RPC 78.0 72.5 .042a29.4 19.1 .119 95.9 91.5 .087b60.0 33.3 .023a82.6 78.3 .484
Regional All 77.3 71.6 .287 36.1 27.8 .114 92.6 87.9 .063b66.7 40.0 <.001a80.6 82.0 .958
RRC 73.5 72.0 .242 16.7 20.0 .907 96.4 92.9 .275 66.7 43.8 .002a74.6 85.0 .021a
RPC 81.2 70.0 .042a43.8 33.3 .147 90.9 84.8 .044a65.2 40.0 .002a86.7 80.6 .484
Regional+10% All 77.3 75.4 .355 27.0 17.1 .079b97.1 93.3 .004a80.6 42.9 <.001a78.2 80.0 .958
RRC 73.0 77.6 .129 13.0 16.7 .907 100 96.6 .083b100 33.3 <.001a73.2 83.3 .016a
RPC 80.0 73.4 .042a30.0 23.2 .109 96.6 92.4 .011a75.0 42.9 .002a84.3 78.4 .484
FRs>1/min All 79.6 77.9 .680 21.4 10.9 .154 97.4 95.4 .124 66.7 39.4 .02a81.1 82.8 .958
RRC 69.9 78.3 .587 16.6 16.0 .824 96.5 98.6 .868 50.0 64.6 .907 69.9 80.3 .682
RPC 79.4 79.4 .903 11.1 11.1 .756 96.4 94.4 .551 40.0 40.0 .891 81.8 85.7 .889
SOZ All 78.9 74.5 .091b51.5 58.3 .318 93.4 87.2 .003a77.8 53.8 <.001a83.2 87.9 .958
RRC 71.7 77.6 .822 30.0 40.0 .178 94.9 88.5 .167 80.0 56.3 .056b75.8 87.8 .008a
RPC 82.9 73.1 .017a59.1 69.8 .756 92.6 81.5 .029a77.8 50.0 .019a89.4 88.6 .889
Abbreviations: FDR, false discovery rate; FR, fast ripple; NPV, negative predictive value; nSF, non- seizure- free; PPV, positive predictive value; RPC, ripple- poor cortex; RRC, ripple- rich cortex; SF, seizure- free; SOZ,
seizure onset zone.
aSignificant difference between the SF and nSF groups: Benjamini– Hochberg FDR- corrected p- value <.05.
bTrend toward a significant difference between the SF and nSF groups: Benjamini– Hochberg FDR- corrected p- value between .05 and .1.
|
9
ZWEIPHENNING et al.
3.2
|
Fast ripples
There was no clinically relevant difference in any perfor-
mance measure of FRs to identify the epileptic focus or
predict seizure freedom using FR rate > 1/min, the 50%
threshold, or any of the three proposed normalization
thresholds (Figures S1 and S2).
3.3
|
Comparing the performance of the
best ripple threshold to FR rate > 1/
min and the SOZ
Four of the 151 (2.6%) patients analyzed for ripples did
not show ripples above the regional + 10% threshold;
FRs>1/min were not detected in eight of the 83 (9.6%)
patients analyzed for FRs.
Comparing the performance of the regional + 10%
threshold to that of FR rate > 1/min to identify the epi-
leptic focus, we found no significant differences (Figure
3A, Table 1B). Comparing the regional +10% threshold
to the SOZ, we found a higher PPV in non- seizure- free
patients (+13.8, p=.05) and lower specificity (seizure-
free, −3.7; non- seizure- free, −6.1; p< .001) of the SOZ.
This shows that the regional+10% threshold is a better
marker for the epileptic focus than the SOZ. The higher
sensitivity (seizure- free, +24.5; non- seizure- free, +41.2;
p<.001) and NPV (seizure- free, +5.0; non- seizure- free,
+7.9; p<.001) of the SOZ compared to the regional+10%
threshold is likely explained by the SOZ being used to tai-
lor the surgical resection (Table 1C).
The regional + 10% threshold outperformed FR rate
> 1/min and the SOZ for outcome prediction, especially
in patients with a focus in ripple- rich cortex (Figure 3B,
Table S3).
4
|
DISCUSSION
In this large bicentric study of 151 patients, we demon-
strated that HFO normalization based on region- specific
physiological HFO rates improves epileptic focus identi-
fication and prediction of surgical outcome. We showed
that (1) normalization significantly improved the ability of
FIGURE Patient examples of a case with an epileptic focus in ripple- rich cortex where normalization improves prediction (A), and
a case with an epileptic focus in ripple- poor cortex where the 50% and all normalization thresholds work (B). Both patients had Engel IA
outcome. We used Epitools50 to map the electrodes in the patient's brain surface as dark blue cylinders and indicated which channels were
above the cutoff threshold of 1 ripple/min with small dark blue spheres. The four columns indicate channels that had ripples above the
50% (light blue), global Atlas (yellow), regional Atlas (green), and regional+10% Atlas (orange) thresholds. The black dots indicate the
resection. (A) This patient benefitted from regional thresholding and shifted from false negative to true positive classification. The 50%
threshold identified four channels inside, and five channels outside the resection: one in the posterior hippocampus, and four in the medial
parieto- occipital areas. The global Atlas threshold identified three channels inside, and three channels outside the resection: three in the
medial parieto- occipital areas. The regional Atlas and regional+10% threshold identified two channels inside the resection. The residual
ripples using the 50% and global Atlas thresholds surpassed the allowed 5% residual high- frequency oscillations, hence the false negative
classification. (B) This patient was classified as false negative using ripple rate > 1/min and as true positive using all other thresholds:
channels with ripples above the 50%, global Atlas, regional Atlas, and regional+10% Atlas thresholds were all inside the right orbitofrontal
resection
10
|
ZWEIPHENNING et al.
ripples to identify the resected tissue and predict seizure
freedom, with the regional+10% threshold exhibiting the
best performance; (2) normalization is particularly useful
in patients with a focus in cortex with high physiological
ripple rates; in this condition, ripple normalization even
outperformed FR rate > 1/min and the SOZ, which re-
quires many days of monitoring; and (3) normalization
did not improve the performance of FRs for focus identifi-
cation or oucome prediction.
4.1
|
Normalization improves epileptic
focus identification
We found a higher accuracy, specificity, and PPV, but
a lower sensitivity and NPV compared to Lachner- Piza
and colleagues and to the tissue- level performance re-
sults from Fedele and colleagues.9,42 Normalization of
ripples not only performed better than standard thresh-
olds applied to ripples alone, but also outperformed
the combinations of ripples and spikes,42 or ripples and
FRs9 reported in the literature. These latter methods are
designed to differentiate pathological from physiologi-
cal ripples and increase the specificity of ripples for the
epileptic tissue.
Higher specificity and PPV confirmed our hypothesis
that correcting for region- specific rates of physiological
ripples improves localization of the epileptic focus com-
pared to standard thresholds applied in HFO research and
compared to the SOZ as current gold standard measure.
We found a larger increase in PPV in seizure- free than
non- seizure- free patients, and a larger increase in PPV in
seizure- free patients with a focus in ripple- rich compared
to ripple- poor cortex. This indicates that our method cor-
rected for physiological ripples and did not erroneously
remove ripples in the nonresected part of the presumed
epileptogenic region in non- seizure- free patients. Our re-
sults also confirm the co- occurrence of physiological and
pathological ripples in the same tissue.19 If diseased tis-
sue were not able to generate physiological ripples, our
subtraction method would result in poorer performance
in patients with a focus in ripple- rich cortex.
FIGURE Patient examples of a case where the 5% tolerance for residual high- frequency oscillations (HFOs) may be too strict (A), and
a case where the physiological ripple correction may be insufficient (B). Both patients had Engel IA outcome. We used Epitools50 to map
the electrodes in the patient's brain surface as dark blue cylinders and indicated which channels were above the cutoff of 1 ripple/min with
small dark blue spheres. The four columns indicate channels that had ripples above the 50% (light blue), global Atlas (yellow), regional Atlas
(green), and regional+10% Atlas (orange) thresholds. The black dots indicate the resection cavity. (A) All thresholds identify the same
brain area, but only using the 50% threshold, this patient was classified as true positive, because there were residual HFOs in >5% of the
70 nonresected channels using the other thresholds. These channels with residual HFOs were located in the close vicinity of the resection
cavity. (B) This patient was classified as false negative using all thresholds and had <50% of the channels above all thresholds resected. All
thresholds correctly identified the right hippocampus, but also showed a parietocentral and occipital ripple focus. This patient's magnetic
resonance imaging showed a right mesiotemporal sclerosis, a small area of gliosis and encephalomalacia/ulegyria in the inferior aspect of
the left occipital pole, and a T2signal abnormality, possibly gliosis or dysplasia, in the left centroparietal region. The parietocentral and
occipital ripple foci may be secondary foci that are responsive to antiseizure medication; alternatively, these may correspond to physiological
ripples, indicating an insufficient correction
|
11
ZWEIPHENNING et al.
The low sensitivity and NPV are likely explained by
the resected tissue also containing nonpathological tis-
sue. Reanalyzing our data using the overlap between re-
sected and SOZ channels, for a more strict definition of
the epileptogenic tissue, resulted in higher sensitivity and
NPV (sensitivity = 44.9% vs. 27%, NPV = 93.9% vs. 78.2%;
data not shown), values similar to those reported in the
literature.
4.2
|
Normalization improves
prediction of Engel IA outcome
We found higher accuracy, sensitivity, and NPV, but
lower PPV and lower or higher specificity comparing
our outcome level results to the results of the long- term
recording subgroup of Jacobs and colleagues, and the
ripple results of Fedele and colleagues.8,9 Higher sen-
sitivity and NPV confirmed our hypothesis that cor-
recting for region- specific rates of physiological ripples
improves prediction of seizure outcome compared to
standard thresholds. Our results showed that all patients
showed significant improvements in the performance
of ripples to predict seizure freedom using any thresh-
old compared to ripple rate > 1/min, but only patients
with a focus in ripple- rich cortex showed significant
improvements in sensitivity and PPV when compar-
ing the regional+10% and 50% thresholds. It was also
supported by the trend toward higher sensitivity and
NPV in patients with a focus in ripple- rich compared
to ripple- poor cortex when using the regional+ 10%
threshold. In patients with a focus in ripple- rich cortex,
the regional + 10% threshold even outperformed the
SOZ. Using a similar approach, Kuroda and colleagues
recently showed that the prediction of postoperative
seizure outcomes can be optimized with the considera-
tion of normalized HFOs.44
Apart from the difference in threshold to define an
HFO channel, other methodological differences were
the definition of good outcome (Engel I vs. IA), and the
threshold defining the number or fraction of HFOs need-
ing to be resected for a good outcome patient to be consid-
ered TP.
4.3
|
Normalization does not improve FR
performance
Physiological FRs are rare, even in eloquent cortical
areas.24 Also, FRs are usually recorded in only a subset
of patients,6,7,10,45 but when present they are very specific
for epileptogenic tissue, and residual FRs after resection
are tightly linked to seizure recurrence.5– 7,9,10 We found
a high percentage of nonresected channels without FRs
(specificity), a high percentage of channels with FRs that
were resected (PPV) at the tissue level, and a high per-
centage of patients with residual FRs who had recurrent
seizures (NPV) at the outcome level. As expected, because
physiological FRs are rare, we found no clinically relevant
changes in these performance measures upon application
of the different thresholds. Interestingly, ripples above
the regional+10% threshold performed similarly to FRs
in terms of focus identification, but outperformed FRs in
outcome prediction.
4.4
|
Limitations
As prior work showed that it is not necessary to remove
all channels with HFOs to achieve seizure freedom, we
allowed residual HFOs in 5% of the nonresected chan-
nels.8,40,46 We defined this threshold as a fraction of the
total number of nonresected channels instead of a rate
threshold to make it independent from the proportion
of electrodes covering the epileptogenic tissue. By doing
so, we also compensated for cases with large resec-
tions where the few identified HFO channels were re-
sected by chance. However, our results showed that this
5% threshold may be too strict in patients with tightly
grouped electrodes (Figure 5A). The nonresected elec-
trodes close to the cavity, which showed likely patho-
logical ripples in these seizure- free patients, may be
functionally deactivated, because they become discon-
nected even if not resected.4
In addition, 10 of the 24 incorrectly classified seizure-
free patients had a clear, separate ripple focus distant from
the resection cavity (Figure 5B). These secondary foci were
predominantly located in central, parietal, and occipital
areas, regions less densely sampled in the MNI Open iEEG
Atlas; hence, the 90th percentile value may be suboptimal.
However, eight of these 10 patients showed either an MRI
abnormality or a PET hypometabolism, so it may be that
our method is correct and seizures originating from these
foci are responsive to antiepileptic drugs. Whether an ex-
tension of the atlas will eventually solve this issue awaits
future research.
Lastly, we analyzed HFOs in 20- min NREM sleep
epochs. We chose this state of vigilance, and if possible
the first sleep cycle, as it was shown to have the highest
HFO rates,25– 27 with the optimal pathological to phys-
iological HFO ratio,29 and hence, best identifies the
epileptic focus in the interictal EEG.28 However, in con-
trast to what was previously suggested,25,47 some recent
studies demonstrated that in some patients HFO anal-
ysis from a short segment of NREM sleep might not be
representative of the total HFO distribution over longer
12
|
ZWEIPHENNING et al.
periods, and hence, analysis of prolonged durations is
warranted.28,48,49
5
|
CONCLUSIONS
This large bicentric study proposes a solution to one of
the key problems that hamper the integration of HFOs
into clinical practice: differentiating physiological from
pathological HFOs. Correcting for region- specific nor-
mative rates of physiological ripples improves epileptic
focus identification and prediction of seizure freedom
compared to using standard HFO measures alone.
Ripple normalization is particularly useful in patients
with an epileptic focus in ripple- rich cortex. In this con-
dition, it even outperformed FR rate > 1/min and the
SOZ, the traditional gold standard for defining the epi-
leptic focus. We found no relevant improvement using
HFO normalization for the performance of FRs, which
supports the general view that FRs are closely related
to epileptogenicity. Future research should compare
normalized ripples to other epilepsy markers in a mul-
timarker approach on the same dataset to improve our
definition of the area to be resected and ultimately epi-
lepsy outcome.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to express their gratitude to the staff
and technicians at the EEG Department of the Montreal
Neurological Institute and Hospital, Lorraine Allard,
Nicole Drouin, and Chantal Lessard. The authors wish
also to express their gratitude to the staff and techni-
cians at the Neurophysiopathology Laboratory of
Grenoble- Alpes University Hospital, Patricia Boschetti,
and Marie- Pierre Noto. This work was supported by
the Canadian Institute of Health Research (grant FDN-
143208 to J.G.) and a donation of the Hewitt Foundation
(to B.F.). B.F.'s salary was supported by a salary award
(Chercheur- boursier clinicien Junior 2) for 2018–
2021 from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec– Santé.
The research stay of B.F. at Dr. Kahane's laboratory
at CHUGA for project planning and local data collec-
tion was supported by a CIC Brain and Mental Health
Chair award from the Neurodis Foundation (to B.F.).
W.J.E.M.Z. received research scholarships from the
Foundations Jo Kolk Studiefonds and De Drie Lichten
in the Netherlands.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
None of the authors has any conflict of interest to disclose.
We confirm that we have read the Journal's position on
issues involved in ethical publication and affirm that this
report is consistent with those guidelines.
ORCID
Willemiek J. E. M. Zweiphenning https://orcid.
org/0000-0002-0720-7878
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How to cite this article: Zweiphenning WJEM,
von Ellenrieder N, Dubeau F, Martineau L, Minotti
L, Hall JA, et al. Correcting for physiological ripples
improves epileptic focus identification and outcome
prediction. Epilepsia. 2021;00:1– 14. https://doi.
org/10.1111/epi.17145
... Investigators previously reported the utility of normative atlases of MI, HFO, and other spectral frequency bands, in the presurgical evaluation of patients with the mean age ranging between adolescence and adulthood [7][8][9][10]13,37 . In the present study, we have provided atlases presenting the expected mean plus two standard deviations of MI biomarkers to illustrate the typical ranges for given age groups (Supplementary Movies 6, 7). ...
Article
Full-text available
We investigated the developmental changes in high-frequency oscillation (HFO) and Modulation Index (MI) – the coupling measure between HFO and slow-wave phase. We generated normative brain atlases, using subdural EEG signals from 8251 nonepileptic electrode sites in 114 patients (ages 1.0–41.5 years) who achieved seizure control following resective epilepsy surgery. We observed a higher MI in the occipital lobe across all ages, and occipital MI increased notably during early childhood. The cortical areas exhibiting MI co-growth were connected via the vertical occipital fasciculi and posterior callosal fibers. While occipital HFO rate showed no significant age-association, the temporal, frontal, and parietal lobes exhibited an age-inversed HFO rate. Assessment of 1006 seizure onset sites revealed that z-score normalized MI and HFO rate were higher at seizure onset versus nonepileptic electrode sites. We have publicly shared our intracranial EEG data to enable investigators to validate MI and HFO-centric presurgical evaluations to identify the epileptogenic zone.
... 14 However, in chemoconvulsant animal models and in patients with epilepsy, ripples are generated at increased rates in and around the EZ. 15 HFOs can occur superimposed on the background EEG [i.e. FR or ripple on oscillation (fRonO or RonO)] or superimposed on an inter-ictal epileptiform spike [i.e. ...
Article
Full-text available
The neuronal circuit disturbances that drive interictal and ictal epileptiform discharges remains elusive. Using a combination of extraoperative macro- and micro-electrode interictal recordings in six presurgical patients during non-rapid eye movement (REM) sleep we found that, exclusively in the seizure onset zone, fast ripples (FR; 200-600 Hz), but not ripples (80-200 Hz), frequently occur <300 msec before an interictal intracranial EEG (iEEG) spike with a probability exceeding chance (bootstrapping, p < 1e-5). Such FR events are associated with higher spectral power (p < 1e-10) and correlated with more vigorous neuronal firing than solitary FR (generalized linear mixed-effects model, GLMM, p < 1e-9). During the iEEG spike that follows a FR, action potential firing is lower than during a iEEG spike alone (GLMM, p < 0.05), reflecting an inhibitory restraint of iEEG spike initiation. In contrast, ripples do not appear to prime epileptiform spikes. We next investigated the clinical significance of pre-spike FR in a separate cohort of 23 patients implanted with stereo EEG electrodes who underwent resections. In non-REM sleep recordings, sites containing a high proportion of FR preceding iEEG spikes correlate with brain areas where seizures begin more than solitary FR (p < 1e-5). Despite this correlation, removal of these sites does not guarantee seizure freedom. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that FR preceding EEG spikes reflect an increase in local excitability that primes EEG spike discharges preferentially in the seizure onset zone and that epileptogenic brain regions are necessary, but not sufficient, for initiating interictal epileptiform discharges.
... Patients with medication-resistant epilepsy can be candidates for surgical treatments for alleviating seizure burden that typically involve intracranial electrode implants to accurately identify the seizure onset area(s) [1][2][3][4][5][6]. These surgically implanted electrodes consist of two types: 1) contacts along thin tubes that extend into the brain (also intraparenchymal depths) targeting subcortical brain regions or deep cortical structures, which we call stereotactic electroencephalography (sEEG) electrodes, or 2) grids and strips on silastic sheets that lay on the cortical surface, which we call electrocorticography (ECoG) electrodes. ...
Article
Full-text available
Implantation of electrodes in the brain has been used as a clinical tool for decades to stimulate and record brain activity. As this method increasingly becomes the standard of care for several disorders and diseases, there is a growing need to quickly and accurately localize the electrodes once they are placed within the brain. We share here a protocol pipeline for localizing electrodes implanted in the brain, which we have applied to more than 260 patients, that is accessible to multiple skill levels and modular in execution. This pipeline uses multiple software packages to prioritize flexibility by permitting multiple different parallel outputs while minimizing the number of steps for each output. These outputs include co-registered imaging, electrode coordinates, 2D and 3D visualizations of the implants, automatic surface and volumetric localizations of the brain regions per electrode, and anonymization and data sharing tools. We demonstrate here some of the pipeline's visualizations and automatic localization algorithms which we have applied to determine appropriate stimulation targets, to conduct seizure dynamics analysis, and to localize neural activity from cognitive tasks in previous studies. Further, the output facilitates the extraction of information such as the probability of grey matter intersection or the nearest anatomic structure per electrode contact across all data sets that go through the pipeline. We expect that this pipeline will be a useful framework for researchers and clinicians alike to localize implanted electrodes in the human brain.
Article
High-frequency oscillations (HFOs) encompass ripples (80 Hz–200 Hz) and fast ripples (200 Hz–600 Hz), serving as a promising biomarker for localizing the epileptogenic zone in epilepsy. Spontaneous fast ripples are always pathological, while ripples may be physiological or pathological. Distinguishing physiological from pathological ripples is important not only for designating epileptogenic brain regions, but also for investigations that study ripples in the context of memory encoding, consolidation, and recall in patients with epilepsy. Many studies have sought to identify distinguishing features between pathological and physiological ripples over the past two decades. Physiological and pathological ripples differ with respect to their spatial location, cellular mechanisms, morphology, and coupling with background electroencephalographic activity. Retrospective studies have demonstrated that differentiating between pathological and physiological ripples can improve surgical outcome prediction. In this review, we summarize the characteristics, differences, and applications of pathological and physiological HFOs and discuss strategies for their clinical translation.
Article
Objective Sleep has important influences on focal interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs), and the rates and spatial extent of IEDs are increased in non‐rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. In contrast, the influence of sleep on seizures is less clear and its effects on seizure topography are poorly documented. We evaluated the influences of NREM sleep on ictal spatiotemporal dynamics and contrasted these with interictal network dynamics. Methods We included patients with drug‐resistant focal epilepsy who underwent continuous intracranial EEG with depth electrodes. Patients were selected if they had 1‐3 seizures from each vigilance state, wakefulness and NREM sleep, within a 48‐hour window and under the same anti‐seizure medication. A 10‐min epoch of the interictal iEEG was selected per state, and IEDs were detected automatically. Twenty‐five patients (13 females; 32.5±7.1 years) were included. Results The seizure onset pattern, duration, spatiotemporal propagation and latency of ictal high‐frequency activity did not differ significantly between wakefulness and NREM sleep (all p >0.05). In contrast, IED rates and spatial distribution were increased in NREM compared to wakefulness ( p <0.001, Cliff's d =0.48 and 0.49). The spatial overlap between vigilance states was higher for seizures (57.1±40.1%) than IEDs (41.7±46.2%) ( p =0.001, Cliff's d =0.51). Interpretation In contrast to its effects on IEDs, NREM sleep does not affect ictal spatiotemporal dynamics. This suggests that once the brain surpasses the seizure threshold, it will follow the underlying epileptic network irrespective of the vigilance state. These findings offer valuable insights into neural network dynamics in epilepsy and have important clinical implications for localizing seizure foci. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Chapter
High-frequency oscillations (HFOs) consist of ripples (80–250 Hz) and fast ripples (>250 Hz). Ripples are attributed an important role in cognition, sleep, and task-related processes and have been reported in many cortical areas of the healthy brain, with large variations in rates depending on anatomical localization. HFOs are also a promising interictal biomarker of epilepsy. HFOs were shown to be more specific to localize the epileptogenic zone than interictal epileptiform discharges. One emerging area in HFO research is the nontrivial task of separating physiological from pathological HFOs. Attempts to differentiate between both entities consist of considering their coupling with epileptic spikes, the background EEG activity, their relation to tasks, the anatomical localization of implanted electrodes, more classical neurophysiological features such as amplitude and frequency, as well as their interaction with sleep and distinct pharmacological modulation. This chapter provides an overview of the current state of evidence, discusses unresolved challenges, and finally shows how to improve the yield of HFOs for prediction of the epileptogenic zone and isolating physiological HFOs for cognitive research. Accounting for the distinct properties of physiological and pathological HFOs could be critical for the interpretation of HFO findings for clinical use or neurocognitive research.
Article
Detection of pre-seizure signs in epileptic signals may help patients to survive the seizure with minimal damage. This study aims to detect epileptic seizure patterns using EEG datasets of five patients. The signals' maximum power spectral density (PSD) and high-frequency oscillations (HFOs) signals are investigated. The PSDs of all patients' signals are calculated, and the subbands of the maximum PSD are examined. It is observed that 95%, 85%, 85%, 75%, and 80% of the channels of the five patients are in the sum of delta and theta subbands of the maximum PSD, respectively. All patients' maximum power frequency subbands of F4 and T3 channels included only delta and theta subbands. Furthermore, frequency increase rates of pre-ictal and ictal signals are investigated, and increasing PSDs of ripples and fast ripples are then calculated. A much higher-frequency ripple follows the low-frequency ripple in 75%, 75%, 65%, 85%, and 75% of the channels of the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth patients, respectively. For the pre-ictal data, a much higher frequency ripple is not seen, followed by a low-frequency ripple in 90%, 85%, 75%, 90%, and 90% of all channels of five patients, respectively. In addition, in this study, the frequency of signals is observed to be 80 Hz and above in the Fp2, C4, P4, O2, and Pz channels, which are common to all patients. Consequently, examining PSD and HFO signals ensures the detection of the differences between the data sets and detects the epileptic seizure patterns in all five patients.
Article
Objective: Accurate localization, classification, and visualization of intracranial electrodes are fundamental for analyzing intracranial electrographic recordings. While manual contact localization is the most common approach, it is time-consuming, prone to errors, and is particularly challenging and subjective in low quality images, which are common in clinical practice. Automatically locating and interactively visualizing where each of the 100-200 individual contacts records in the brain is essential for understanding the neural origins of intracranial EEG. Approach: We introduced the SEEGAtlas plugin for the IBIS system, an open-source software platform for image-guided neurosurgery and multi-modal image visualization. SEEGAtlas extends IBIS functionalities to semi-automatically locate depth-electrode contact coordinates and automatically label the tissue type and anatomical region in which each contact is located. To illustrate the capabilities of SEEGAtlas and to validate the algorithms, clinical magnetic resonance images (MRIs) before and after electrode implantation of ten patients with depth electrodes implanted to localize the origin of their epileptic seizures were analyzed. Main Results: Visually identified contact coordinates were compared with the coordinates obtained by SEEGAtlas, resulting in a median difference of 1.4mm. The agreement was lower for MRIs with weak susceptibility artifacts than for high-quality images. The tissue type was classified with 86% agreement with visual inspection. The anatomical region was classified as having a median agreement across patients of 82%. Significance: The SEEGAtlas plugin is user-friendly and enables accurate localization and anatomical labeling of individual contacts along implanted electrodes, together with powerful visualization tools. Employing the open-source SEEGAtlas results in accurate analysis of the recorded intracranial EEG, even when only suboptimal clinical imaging is available. A better understanding of the cortical origin of intracranial EEG would help improve clinical interpretation and answer fundamental questions of human neuroscience.
Article
Since the discovery of the human electroencephalogram (EEG), neurophysiology techniques have become indispensable tools in our armamentarium to localize epileptic seizures. New signal analysis techniques and the prospects of artificial intelligence and big data will offer unprecedented opportunities to further advance the field in the near future, ultimately resulting in improved quality of life for many patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. This article summarizes selected presentations from Day 1 of the two-day symposium "Neurophysiology, Neuropsychology, Epilepsy, 2022: Hills We Have Climbed and the Hills Ahead". Day 1 was dedicated to highlighting and honoring the work of Dr. Jean Gotman, a pioneer in EEG, intracranial EEG, simultaneous EEG/ functional magnetic resonance imaging, and signal analysis of epilepsy. The program focused on two main research directions of Dr. Gotman, and was dedicated to "High-frequency oscillations, a new biomarker of epilepsy" and "Probing the epileptic focus from inside and outside". All talks were presented by colleagues and former trainees of Dr. Gotman. The extended summaries provide an overview of historical and current work in the neurophysiology of epilepsy with emphasis on novel EEG biomarkers of epilepsy and source imaging and concluded with an outlook on the future of epilepsy research, and what is needed to bring the field to the next level.
Preprint
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The cortex generates high-frequency oscillations (HFO) nested in slow waves during sleep, and these signals are especially elevated in the seizure onset zone. Thus, HFO occurrence rate and Modulation Index (MI), which quantifies the strength of coupling between HFO amplitude and slow-wave phase, represent promising epilepsy biomarkers. However, their diagnostic utility may be suboptimal because the endogenous developmental distributions are unknown. To improve age-appropriate localization of the epileptogenic zone, we hence constructed normative brain atlases demonstrating the developmental changes in MI and HFO rate. Our study investigated extraoperative, intracranial EEG data from 114 patients with focal epilepsy (ages 1.0 to 41.5 years) who achieved International League Against Epilepsy class I outcomes following resective surgery. We analyzed 20-minute slow-wave sleep epochs at 8,251 nonepileptic electrode sites (those outside the seizure onset zone, interictal spike zone, or MRI-visible lesions). Each electrode was transposed onto a standard brain template, and we then calculated its MI and HFO occurrence rate using four different detector toolboxes. Linear and nonlinear regression models determined the developmental slope of MI and HFO rate at each cortical mesh point. Mixed model analysis established the significance of MI and HFO rate developmental changes in each region of interest, while accounting for the independent effects of patient and epilepsy profiles. Finally, we created a dynamic tractography movie visualizing white matter pathways connecting cortical regions showing developmental co-growth in MI. We found that the occipital lobe exhibited enhanced MI compared to other lobes in both children and adults. Increased age, square root of age, and log base 10 of age were independently associated with elevated MI exclusively in the occipital lobe. The cortical regions showing developmental co-growth in MI were connected via the vertical occipital fasciculi and posterior callosal fibers. In contrast, we did not observe any significant association between age measures and HFO rate in the occipital lobe, but rather noted an inverse relationship between age and HFO rate in the temporal, frontal, and parietal lobes. Our study suggests that phase-amplitude coupling between physiologic HFO and delta waves, as rated by MI, is strengthened during development, in the occipital lobe particularly during toddlerhood and preschool. Given that occipital delta-nested HFO are believed to support visual memory consolidation, our observations imply that process may be significantly strengthened during early childhood. The data is publicly available to provide investigators with a crucial reference for MI and HFO-based presurgical evaluation of the epileptogenic zone.
Article
Full-text available
Researchers have looked for rapidly- and objectively-measurable electrophysiology biomarkers that accurately localize the epileptogenic zone. Promising candidates include interictal high-frequency oscillation and phase-amplitude coupling. Investigators have independently created the toolboxes that compute the high-frequency oscillation rate and the severity of phase-amplitude coupling. This study of 135 patients determined what toolboxes and analytic approaches would optimally classify patients achieving postoperative seizure control. Four different detector toolboxes computed the rate of high-frequency oscillation at ≥ 80 Hz at intracranial EEG channels. Another toolbox calculated the modulation index reflecting the strength of phase-amplitude coupling between high-frequency oscillation and slow-wave at 3-4 Hz. We defined the completeness of resection of interictally-abnormal regions as the subtraction of high-frequency oscillation rate (or modulation index) averaged across all preserved sites from that averaged across all resected sites. We computed the outcome classification accuracy of the logistic regression-based standard model considering clinical, ictal intracranial EEG, and neuroimaging variables alone. We then determined how well the incorporation of high-frequency oscillation/modulation index would improve the standard model mentioned above. To assess the anatomical variability across nonepileptic sites, we generated the normative atlas of detector-specific high-frequency oscillation and modulation index. Each atlas allowed us to compute the statistical deviation of high-frequency oscillation/modulation index from the nonepileptic mean. We determined whether the model accuracy would be improved by incorporating absolute or normalized high-frequency oscillation/modulation index as a biomarker assessing interictally-abnormal regions. We finally determined whether the model accuracy would be improved by selectively incorporating high-frequency oscillation verified to have high-frequency oscillatory components unattributable to a high-pass filtering effect. Ninety-five patients achieved successful seizure control, defined as International League Against Epilepsy class 1 outcome. Multivariate logistic regression analysis demonstrated that complete resection of interictally-abnormal regions additively increased the chance of success. The model accuracy was further improved by incorporating z-score normalized high-frequency oscillation/modulation index or selective incorporation of verified high-frequency oscillation. The standard model had a classification accuracy of 0.75. Incorporation of normalized high-frequency oscillation/modulation index or verified high-frequency oscillation improved the classification accuracy up to 0.82. These outcome prediction models survived the cross-validation process and demonstrated an agreement between the model-based likelihood of success and the observed success on an individual basis. Interictal high-frequency oscillation and modulation index had a comparably additive utility in epilepsy presurgical evaluation. Our empirical data support the theoretical notion that the prediction of postoperative seizure outcomes can be optimized with the consideration of both interictal and ictal abnormalities.
Article
Full-text available
For patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy, surgery is the therapy of choice in order to achieve seizure freedom. Epilepsy surgery foremost requires the identification of the epileptogenic zone (EZ), defined as the brain area indispensable for seizure generation. The current gold standard for identification of the EZ is the seizure-onset zone (SOZ). The fact, however that surgical outcomes are unfavorable in 40-50% of well-selected patients, suggests that the SOZ is a suboptimal biomarker of the EZ, and that new biomarkers resulting in better postsurgical outcomes are needed. Research of recent years suggested that high-frequency oscillations (HFOs) are a promising biomarker of the EZ, with a potential to improve surgical success in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy without the need to record seizures. Nonetheless, in order to establish HFOs as a clinical biomarker, the following issues need to be addressed. First, evidence on HFOs as a clinically relevant biomarker stems predominantly from retrospective assessments with visual marking, leading to problems of reproducibility and reliability. Prospective assessments of the use of HFOs for surgery planning using automatic detection of HFOs are needed in order to determine their clinical value. Second, disentangling physiologic from pathologic HFOs is still an unsolved issue. Considering the appearance and the topographic location of presumed physiologic HFOs could be immanent for the interpretation of HFO findings in a clinical context. Third, recording HFOs non-invasively via scalp electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) is highly desirable, as it would provide us with the possibility to translate the use of HFOs to the scalp in a large number of patients. This article reviews the literature regarding these three issues. The first part of the article focuses on the clinical value of invasively recorded HFOs in localizing the EZ, the detection of HFOs, as well as their separation from physiologic HFOs. The second part of the article focuses on the current state of the literature regarding non-invasively recorded HFOs with emphasis on findings and technical considerations regarding their localization.
Article
Objective To examine if fast ripples (FRs) are an accurate marker of the epileptogenic zone, we analyzed overnight stereo-EEG recordings from 43 patients, and hypothesized that FR resection ratio, maximal FR rate, and FR distribution predict postsurgical seizure outcome. Methods We detected FRs automatically from an overnight recording edited for artefacts and visually from a 5-minute period of slow-wave sleep. We primarily examined the accuracy of removing ≥50% of total FR events or of channels with FRs to predict postsurgical seizure outcome (Engel Class I = good, and II–IV = poor) based on the whole-night and 5-minute analysis approaches. Secondarily, we examined association of (1) low overall FR rates, or (2) absence or incomplete resection of one dominant area with poor outcome. Results The accuracy of outcome prediction was highest (81%, 95% CI 67%–92%) when using the FR event resection ratio and whole-night recording (vs 72%, 95% CI 56%–85%, for the visual 5-minute approach). Absence of channels with FR rates >6/min ( p = 0.001) and absence or incomplete resection of one dominant FR area ( p < 0.001) were associated with poor outcome. Conclusions FRs are accurate in predicting epilepsy surgery outcome at the individual level when using overnight recordings. Absence of channels with high FR rates or absence of one dominant FR area is a poor prognostic factor that may reflect suboptimal spatial sampling of the epileptogenic zone or multifocality, rather than an inherently low sensitivity of FRs. Classification of evidence This study provides Class II evidence that FRs are accurate in predicting epilepsy surgery outcome.
Article
Objective: Regional variations in oscillatory activity during human sleep remain unknown. Using the unique ability of intracranial electroencephalography to study in-situ brain physiology, this study assesses regional variations of electroencephalographic sleep activity and creates the first atlas of human sleep using recordings from the first sleep cycle. Methods: Intracerebral electroencephalographic recordings with channels displaying physiological activity from non-lesional tissue were selected from 91 patients of three tertiary epilepsy centers. Sections during non-rapid eye movement sleep (N2, N3) and rapid eye movement sleep (R) were selected from the first sleep cycle for oscillatory and non-oscillatory signal analysis. Results of 1468 channels were grouped into 38 regions covering all cortical areas. Results: We found regional differences in the distribution of sleep transients and spectral content, during all sleep stages. There was a caudo-rostral gradient with more slow frequencies and fewer spindles in temporo-parieto-occipital than in frontal cortex. Moreover, deep-seated structures showed spectral peaks differing from the baseline electroencephalogram. The regions with >60% of channels presenting significant rhythmic activity were either mesial or temporal basal structures that contribute minimally to the scalp EEG. Finally, during deeper sleep stages, electroencephalographic analysis revealed a more homogeneous spatial distribution, with increased coupling between high and low frequencies. Interpretation: This study provides a better understanding of the regional variability of sleep, and establishes a baseline for human sleep in all cortical regions during the first sleep cycle. Furthermore, the open-access atlas will be a unique resource for research (https://mni-open-ieegatlas. Research: mcgill.ca). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Article
Objective: Interictal epileptiform anomalies such as epileptiform discharges or high-frequency oscillations show marked variations across the sleep-wake cycle. This study investigates which state of vigilance is the best to localize the epileptogenic zone (EZ) in interictal intracranial electroencephalography (EEG). Methods: Thirty patients with drug-resistant epilepsy undergoing stereo-EEG (SEEG)/sleep recording and subsequent open surgery were included; 13 patients (43.3%) had good surgical outcome (Engel class I). Sleep was scored following standard criteria. Multiple features based on the interictal EEG (interictal epileptiform discharges, high-frequency oscillations, univariate and bivariate features) were used to train a support vector machine (SVM) model to classify SEEG contacts placed in the EZ. The performance of the algorithm was evaluated by the mean area under the receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves (AUCs) and positive predictive values (PPVs) across 10-minute sections of wake, non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM) stages N2 and N3, REM sleep, and their combination. Results: Highest AUCs were achieved in NREM sleep stages N2 and N3 compared to wakefulness and REM (P < .01). There was no improvement when using a combination of all four states (P > .05); the best performing features in the combined state were selected from NREM sleep. There were differences between good (Engel I) and poor (Engel II-IV) outcomes in PPV (P < .05) and AUC (P < .01) across all states. The SVM multifeature approach outperformed spikes and high-frequency oscillations (P < .01) and resulted in results similar to those of the seizure-onset zone (SOZ; P > .05). Significance: Sleep improves the localization of the EZ with best identification obtained in NREM sleep stages N2 and N3. Results based on the multifeature classification in 10 minutes of NREM sleep were not different from the results achieved by the SOZ based on 12.7 days of seizure monitoring. This finding might ultimately result in a more time-efficient intracranial presurgical investigation of focal epilepsy.
Article
Epileptic brain tissue is often considered physiologically dysfunctional, and the optimal treatment of many patients with uncontrollable seizures involves surgical removal of the epileptic tissue. However, it is unclear to what extent the epileptic tissue is capable of generating physiological responses to cognitive stimuli and how cognitive deficits ensuing surgical resections can be determined using state-of-the-art computational methods. To address these unknowns, we recruited six patients with nonlesional epilepsies and identified the epileptic focus in each patient with intracranial electrophysiological monitoring. We measured spontaneous epileptic activity in the form of high-frequency oscillations (HFOs), recorded stimulus-locked physiological responses in the form of physiological high-frequency broadband activity, and explored the interaction of the two as well as their behavioral correlates. Across all patients, we found abundant normal physiological responses to relevant cognitive stimuli in the epileptic sites. However, these physiological responses were more likely to be “seized” (delayed or missed) when spontaneous HFOs occurred about 850 to 1050 ms before, until about 150 to 250 ms after, the onset of relevant cognitive stimuli. Furthermore, spontaneous HFOs in medial temporal lobe affected the subjects’ memory performance. Our findings suggest that nonlesional epileptic sites are capable of generating normal physiological responses and highlight a compelling mechanism for cognitive deficits in these patients. The results also offer clinicians a quantitative tool to differentiate pathological and physiological high-frequency activities in epileptic sites and to indirectly assess their possible cognitive reserve function and approximate the risk of resective surgery.
Conference Paper
High-Frequency-Oscillations (HFO) are biomarkers of the epileptogenic-zone (EZ) and thus a potential aid in guiding epilepsy-surgery. HFO are normally sub-divided according to their oscillating-frequency into Ripples (80-250 Hz) and Fast-Ripples (FR) (250-500 Hz) and are known to also occur in the non-epileptic brain. We address two challenges faced by HFO: firstly, estimating the margins of the EZ using the HFO occurrence-rate from each intracranial EEG channel; secondly, selecting HFO sub-groups with a higher probability of being purely epileptic. We propose the clustering of channels with high HFO occurrence-rates as a deterministic method to delimit the EZ. Additionally, we perform the EZ estimation using 9 sub-groups of HFO; these sub-groups are determined by their temporal and spatial coincidence with intracranial interictal-epileptic-spikes (IES) and are assumed to have varying levels of epileptogenicity. The EZ estimated withthe different HFO-sub-groups are compared between themselves and with a proxy of the factually undefinable EZ, namely the resected-volume (RV). The proposed clustering method proved to be deterministic and allowed estimating the EZ for each patient and each HFO-sub-group. Those Ripples assumed to be more epileptogenic occurred in lower numbers than all Ripples but showed the highest correspondence with the RV. All FR sub-groups showed a high specificity to the RV. The proposed clustering method successfully extracted the information from the HFO occurrence-rate to estimate the EZ. The selection of more epileptogenic HFO based on their coincidence with IES proved to be of value for both Ripples and FR.
Article
Importance Cortical stimulation is used during presurgical epilepsy evaluation for functional mapping and for defining the cortical area responsible for seizure generation. Despite wide use of cortical stimulation, the association between cortical stimulation–induced seizures and surgical outcome remains unknown. Objective To assess whether removal of the seizure-onset zone resulting from cortical stimulation is associated with a good surgical outcome. Design, Setting, and Participants This cohort study used data from 2 tertiary epilepsy centers: Montreal Neurological Institute in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and Grenoble-Alpes University Hospital in Grenoble, France. Participants included consecutive patients (n = 103) with focal drug-resistant epilepsy who underwent stereoelectroencephalography between January 1, 2007, and January 1, 2017. Participant selection criteria were cortical stimulation during implantation, subsequent open surgical procedure with a follow-up of 1 or more years, and complete neuroimaging data sets for superimposition between intracranial electrodes and the resection. Main Outcomes and Measures Cortical stimulation–induced typical electroclinical seizures, the volume of the surgical resection, and the percentage of resected electrode contacts inducing a seizure or encompassing the cortical stimulation–informed and spontaneous seizure-onset zones were identified. These measures were correlated with good (Engel class I) and poor (Engel classes II-IV) surgical outcomes. Electroclinical characteristics associated with cortical stimulation–induced seizures were analyzed. Results In total, 103 patients were included, of whom 54 (52.4%) were female, and the mean (SD) age was 31 (11) years. Fifty-nine patients (57.3%) had cortical stimulation–induced seizures. The percentage of patients with cortical stimulation–induced electroclinical seizures was higher in the good outcome group than in the poor outcome group (31 of 44 [70.5%] vs 28 of 59 [47.5%]; P = .02). The percentage of the resected contacts encompassing the cortical stimulation–informed seizure-onset zone correlated with surgical outcome (median [range] percentage in good vs poor outcome: 63.2% [0%-100%] vs 33.3% [0%-84.6%]; Spearman ρ = 0.38; P = .003). A similar result was observed for spontaneous seizures (median [range] percentage in good vs poor outcome: 57.1% [0%-100%] vs 32.7% [0%-100%]; Spearman ρ = 0.32; P = .002). Longer elapsed time since the most recent seizure was associated with a higher likelihood of inducing seizures (>24 hours: 64.7% vs <24 hours: 27.3%; P = .04). Conclusions and Relevance Seizure induction by cortical stimulation appears to identify the epileptic generator as reliably as spontaneous seizures do; this finding might lead to a more time-efficient intracranial presurgical investigation of focal epilepsy as the need to record spontaneous seizures is reduced.
Article
Objective: To evaluate the use of interictal high-frequency oscillations (HFOs) in epilepsy surgery for prediction of postsurgical seizure outcome in a prospective multicenter trial. Methods: We hypothesized that a seizure-free outcome could be expected in patients in whom the surgical planning included the majority of HFO-generating brain tissue while a poor seizure outcome could be expected in patients in whom only a few such areas were planned to be resected. Fifty-two patients were included from 3 tertiary epilepsy centers during a 1-year period. Ripples (80-250 Hz) and fast ripples (250-500 Hz) were automatically detected during slow-wave sleep with chronic intracranial EEG in 2 centers and acute intraoperative electrocorticography in 1 patient. Results: There was a correlation between the removal of HFO-generating regions and seizure-free outcome at the group level for all patients. No correlation was found, however, for the center-specific analysis, and an individual prognostication of seizure outcome was true in only 36 patients (67%). Moreover, some patients became seizure-free without removal of the majority of HFO-generating tissue. The investigation of influencing factors, including comparisons of visual and automatic analysis, using a threshold analysis for areas with high HFO activity, and excluding contacts bordering the resection, did not result in improved prognostication. Conclusions: On an individual patient level, a prediction of outcome was not possible in all patients. This may be due to the analysis techniques used. Alternatively, HFOs may be less specific for epileptic tissue than earlier studies have indicated.