Clinical EEG and Neuroscience最新文献

Background: Although electroencephalography (EEG)-based indices may show artifactual values, raw EEG signal is seldom used to monitor the depth of volatile induction of general anesthesia (VIGA). The current analysis aimed to identify whether bispectral index (BIS) variations reliably reflect the actual depth of general anesthesia during presence of different types of epileptiform patterns (EPs) in EEGs during induction of general anesthesia.

Methods: Sixty patients receiving either VIGA with sevoflurane using increasing concentrations (group VIMA) or vital capacity (group VCRII) technique or intravenous single dose of propofol (group PROP) were included. Monitoring included facial electromyography (fEMG), fraction of inspired sevoflurane (FiAA), fraction of expired sevoflurane (FeAA), minimal alveolar concentration (MAC) of sevoflurane, BIS, standard EEG, and hemodynamic parameters.

Results: In the PROP group no EPs were observed. During different stages of VIGA with sevoflurane in the VIMA and VCRII groups, presence of polyspikes and rhythmic polyspikes in patients' EEGs resulted in artifactual BIS values indicating a false awareness/wakefulness from anesthesia, despite no concomitant change of FiAA, FeAA, and MAC of sevoflurane. Periodic epileptiform discharges did not result in aberrant BIS values.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that raw EEG correlate it with values of BIS, FiAA, FeAA, and MAC of sevoflurane during VIGA. It seems that because artifactual BIS values indicating false awareness/wakefulness as a result of presence of polyspikes and rhythmic polyspikes in patients' EEGs may be misleading to an anesthesiologist, leading to unintentional administration of toxic concentration of sevoflurane in ventilation gas.

Triggering or modulation of seizures and rhythmic EEG patterns by external stimuli are well-known with the most common clinical appearance of stimulus induced periodic discharges (SI- PDs) patterns which are elicited by physical or auditory stimulation. However, stimulus terminated periodic discharges (ST-PDs), in other words, the periodic discharges stopped by external stimuli is an extremely rare electroencephalographic (EEG) finding. We report a 20-year-old woman with a marked psychomotor developmental delay of unknown cause, with frequent EEG patterns of long-lasting (10-60 s) bilateral paroxysmal high-voltage slow waves with occasional spikes, misdiagnosed as non-convulsive status epilepticus. However, no apparent clinical change was noted by the technician, physician, and her mother during these subclinical ictal EEG recordings. Interestingly, however, these epileptic discharges were abruptly interrupted by sudden verbal stimuli on the EEG, repeatedly. Whole exome sequencing and genotyping were performed to investigate possible genetic etiology that revealed two sequence variants, a frameshift variant of CACNA1H NM_021098.3:c.1701del;p.Asp568ThrfsTer15 and a missense variant of GRIN2D NM_000836.4:c.1783A>T;p.Thr595Ser as well as a copy number variant part deletion of ATP6V1A gene arr [hg19]3q13.31(113,499,698_113,543,081)x1 as possible pathogenic candidates. The subclinical periodic discharges terminated by verbal stimuli, is a very rare manifestation and needs particular attention. External modulation of ictal-appearing EEG patterns is important to identify stimulus terminated EEG patterns.

Objective: To characterize potential brain indexes of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults. Methods: In an effort to develop objective, laboratory-based tests that can help to establish ADHD diagnosis, the brain indexes of distractibility was investigated in a group of adults. We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and performance measures in a forced-choice visual task. Results: Behaviorally aberrant distractibility in the ADHD group was significantly higher. Across three ERP components of distraction: N1 enhancement, P300 (P3a), and Reorienting Negativity (RON) the significant difference between ADHD and matched controls was found in the amplitude of the RON. We used non-parametric randomization tests, enabling us to statistically validated this difference between-group. Conclusions: Our main results of this feasibility study suggest that among other ERP components associated with auditory distraction, the RON response is promising index for a potential biomarker of deficient re-orienting of attention in adults s with ADHD.

The goal of these studies was to use quantitative (q)EEG techniques on data from children with Angelman syndrome (AS) using spectral power analysis, and to evaluate this as a potential biomarker and quantitative method to evaluate therapeutics. Although characteristic patterns are evident in visual inspection, using qEEG techniques has the potential to provide quantitative evidence of treatment efficacy. We first assessed spectral power from baseline EEG recordings collected from children with AS compared to age-matched neurotypical controls, which corroborated the previously reported finding of increased total power driven by elevated delta power in children with AS. We then retrospectively analyzed data collected during a clinical trial evaluating the safety and tolerability of minocycline (3 mg/kg/d) to compare pretreatment recordings from children with AS (4-12 years of age) to EEG activity at the end of treatment and following washout for EEG spectral power and epileptiform events. At baseline and during minocycline treatment, the AS subjects demonstrated increased delta power; however, following washout from minocycline treatment the AS subjects had significantly reduced EEG spectral power and epileptiform activity. Our findings support the use of qEEG analysis in evaluating AS and suggest that this technique may be useful to evaluate therapeutic efficacy in AS. Normalizing EEG power in AS therefore may become an important metric in screening therapeutics to gauge overall efficacy. As therapeutics transition from preclinical to clinical studies, it is vital to establish outcome measures that can quantitatively evaluate putative treatments for AS and neurological disorders with distinctive EEG patterns.

The cerebral cortex functional network of Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals during transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) on 21 healthy subjects was constructed by using three modules: standard low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA), phase-locking value (PLV), and complex network. We investigated the brain functional network triggered by PC7 stimulation by comparing with resting state and non-acupoint stimulation. The results showed that the PC7 stimulation mainly activated frontal lobe and temporal lobe including prefrontal cortex (BA10), insular lobe (BA13), temporal gyrus (BA22), anterior cingulate cortex (BA32), temporal pole (BA38), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA46), and inferior frontal cortex (BA47), which are all closely linked to cognition, spirit, and emotion in brain. Furthermore, the degrees of node in frontal, temporal, and whole brain are increased significantly or extreme significantly with p < 0.05, p < 0.05, and p < 0.01, respectively; clustering coefficient in frontal, temporal, and whole brain are all statistically significant (p < 0.05). The information transmission efficiency of cerebral cortex has been greatly improved. During PC7 stimulation, the topological changes in the activation of cerebral regions and cortical functional networks are consistent with the therapeutic effect, which may provide theoretical support for acupoint stimulation to regulate nerve function.

Spirituality and religiosity are complex cognitive phenomena; however, the relationship between spiritual experiences and epilepsy continues to be debated. Methods. Data from the daily spiritual experience scale (DSES) were related to EEG data and clinical variables of 100 adult people with epilepsy (PWEs). DSES scores were compared to 51 normal individuals (control group [CG]), with a significance level of P < .05. Results. The total score in the DSES was 36.1 ± 14 and 37.6 ± 13.2, respectively, in the PWEs and in the CG. In the PWEs, there was a correlation between DSES and age (Pearson's correlation; -0.22; P = .027) and educational level (0.207; P = .039). PWEs with ≥one seizure/month have a lower frequency of daily spiritual experiences than those with better controlled seizures (T-test; 39.2 ± 16.2 vs 31.7 ± 7.6; P = .038). EEG epileptiform activity (EA) in the right hemisphere was associated with a higher frequency of spiritual experiences than those with left-hemisphere EA (29.8 ± 9.0 vs 38.5 ± 17.5; P = .010). Conclusion. Demographic aspects, EA in the right hemisphere, and lower seizure frequency are associated with daily spiritual experiences in epilepsy, suggesting an association between aspects of spirituality, epilepsy, and neurobiological correlates.

Background: Dry Needling (DN) has been demonstrated to be effective in improving sensorimotor function and spasticity in patients with chronic stroke. Electroencephalogram (EEG) has been used to analyze if DN has effects on the central nervous system of patients with stroke. There are no studies on how DN works in patients with chronic stroke based on EEG analysis using complex networks. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess how DN works when it is applied in a patient with stroke, using the graph theory. Methods: One session of DN was applied to the spastic brachialis muscle of a 62-year-old man with right hemiplegia after stroke. EEG was used to analyze the effects of DN following metrics that measure the topological configuration: 1) network density, 2) clustering coefficient, 3) average shortest path length, 4) betweenness centrality, and 5) small-worldness. Measurements were taken before and during DN. Results: An improvement of the brain activity was observed in this patient with stroke after the application of DN, which led to variations of local parameters of the brain network in the delta, theta and alpha bands, and inclined towards those of the healthy control bands. Conclusions: This case study showed the positive effects of DN on brain network of a patient with chronic stroke.

Following investigations into the benefits of meditation on psychological health and well-being, research is now seeking to understand the mechanisms underlying these outcomes. This study aimed to identify natural alpha and theta frequency components during eyes-closed resting and concentrative meditation states and examined their differences within and between two testing sessions. Novice meditators had their EEG recorded during eyes-closed resting and concentrative meditation conditions, before and after engaging in a brief daily concentrative meditation practice for approximately one-month. Separate frequency Principal Components Analyses (f-PCA) yielded four spectral components of interest, congruent between both conditions and sessions: Delta-Theta-Alpha, Low Alpha, High Alpha, and Alpha-Beta. While all four components showed some increase in the meditation condition at the second session, only Low Alpha (∼9.5-10.0 Hz) showed similar increases while resting. These findings support the use of f-PCA as a novel method of data analysis in the investigation of psychophysiological states in meditation.

Cognitive impairment has been observed consistently in a subset of breast cancer survivors. Yet, still unknown is whether neural and behavioral effects of cancer exist prior to treatment, which may contribute to later cognitive decline. The current study investigated pre-treatment differences in attention performance and frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA), an established neural index of inhibitory control, in non-metastatic breast cancer patients (n = 42) compared with healthy controls (n = 28). We additionally investigated whether differences between groups appear in specific cuing conditions and across different stages of information processing. Participants underwent EEG while completing the Attention Network Task (ANT), a cognitive measure of alerting, orienting, and inhibitory control of attention. Results revealed no behavioral differences between patients and controls but significantly greater right-hemisphere alpha activity (reduced inhibitory control) in patients, particularly to uninformative (no cue, double cue) versus informative (valid cue) cues and in later stages of information processing (400-800 ms post-stimulus). Results suggest neural differences between groups to uncertain stimulus environments that have yet to manifest behaviorally. FAA may thus serve as a unique neural correlate that could potentially be used to predict later cognitive decline.