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Creators/Authors contains: "Worrell, Gregory A."

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  1. Abstract

    Identification of active electrodes that record task-relevant neurophysiological activity is needed for clinical and industrial applications as well as for investigating brain functions. We developed an unsupervised, fully automated approach to classify active electrodes showing event-related intracranial EEG (iEEG) responses from 115 patients performing a free recall verbal memory task. Our approach employed new interpretable metrics that quantify spectral characteristics of the normalized iEEG signal based on power-in-band and synchrony measures. Unsupervised clustering of the metrics identified distinct sets of active electrodes across different subjects. In the total population of 11,869 electrodes, our method achieved 97% sensitivity and 92.9% specificity with the most efficient metric. We validated our results with anatomical localization revealing significantly greater distribution of active electrodes in brain regions that support verbal memory processing. We propose our machine-learning framework for objective and efficient classification and interpretation of electrophysiological signals of brain activities supporting memory and cognition.

     
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  2. Abstract Objective

    The factors that influence seizure timing are poorly understood, and seizure unpredictability remains a major cause of disability. Work in chronobiology has shown that cyclical physiological phenomena are ubiquitous, with daily and multiday cycles evident in immune, endocrine, metabolic, neurological, and cardiovascular function. Additionally, work with chronic brain recordings has identified that seizure risk is linked to daily and multiday cycles in brain activity. Here, we provide the first characterization of the relationships between the cyclical modulation of a diverse set of physiological signals, brain activity, and seizure timing.

    Methods

    In this cohort study, 14 subjects underwent chronic ambulatory monitoring with a multimodal wrist‐worn sensor (recording heart rate, accelerometry, electrodermal activity, and temperature) and an implanted responsive neurostimulation system (recording interictal epileptiform abnormalities and electrographic seizures). Wavelet and filter–Hilbert spectral analyses characterized circadian and multiday cycles in brain and wearable recordings. Circular statistics assessed electrographic seizure timing and cycles in physiology.

    Results

    Ten subjects met inclusion criteria. The mean recording duration was 232 days. Seven subjects had reliable electroencephalographic seizure detections (mean = 76 seizures). Multiday cycles were present in all wearable device signals across all subjects. Seizure timing was phase locked to multiday cycles in five (temperature), four (heart rate, phasic electrodermal activity), and three (accelerometry, heart rate variability, tonic electrodermal activity) subjects. Notably, after regression of behavioral covariates from heart rate, six of seven subjects had seizure phase locking to the residual heart rate signal.

    Significance

    Seizure timing is associated with daily and multiday cycles in multiple physiological processes. Chronic multimodal wearable device recordings can situate rare paroxysmal events, like seizures, within a broader chronobiology context of the individual. Wearable devices may advance the understanding of factors that influence seizure risk and enable personalized time‐varying approaches to epilepsy care.

     
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