Scientists from Lobachevsky University of Nizhny Novgorod, together with colleagues from Russia and Spain, have developed a program that can find the focus of epilepsy from a short electroencephalogram recording. In the future, this approach could reduce the time to find the seizure-causing zone from hours to minutes.
Usually, a doctor has to record an EEG for a long time to wait for rare convulsive discharges. The patient wears electrodes, and the specialist then analyzes the recording and tries to determine which part of the brain pathological activity originates from.
The new program uses a different indicator — normal background brain rhythms, which can be recorded when a person sits calmly. The algorithm analyzes a short signal and tries to determine if there is a pathological zone and in which area of the brain the focus is most likely located.
We managed to predict the localization of the focus of convulsive activity in the brain by analyzing only background rhythms on short-duration EEG recordings, although usually for such a task it is necessary to analyze convulsive discharges, which are rare.
Thus, the program does not need to wait for the event itself that the doctor is trying to catch on the EEG. It looks for characteristic changes in background activity and uses them to assess the location of the focus.
Currently, the development is being tested on open datasets. In the future, it is planned to be used in clinics as an auxiliary tool for doctors. If the technology proves effective on real patients, the diagnosis of epileptic focus localization could become significantly faster.
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