Abstracts

Neuro-Respiratory Connectivity During Periods of Susceptibility to Seizures

Abstract number : 3.082
Submission category : 2. Translational Research / 2A. Human Studies
Year : 2021
Submission ID : 1826387
Source : www.aesnet.org
Presentation date : 12/9/2021 12:00:00 PM
Published date : Nov 22, 2021, 06:53 AM

Authors :
Noah Hutson, PhD - Barrow Neurological Institute; Norma Hupp – Department of Neurology – McGovern Medical School, U. Texas at Houston; Leonidas Iasemidis – Biomedical Engineering – Louisiana Tech University and EpiFocus LLC; Samden Lhatoo, MD – Department of Neurology – McGovern Medical School, U. Texas at Houston

Rationale: Central respiratory control centers are frequency sensitive [1] and can be impaired when seizure activity spreads to the amygdala [2]. There is growing evidence that impaired communication between the neuro and cardiorespiratory systems may be a risk factor for sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) [3]. Our recent network analysis of signals between the brain, heart and lungs in SUDEP-prone (Kv1.1 knock-out) mice has shown elevated effective connectivity from the brain to the lungs peri-ictally [4]. In the current study, we set to investigate if patterns of network interactions between the neural and respiratory systems are also indicative of susceptibility to seizures in patients with epilepsy.

Methods: Longitudinal (multi-day) intracranial electroencephalographic (iEEG), electrocardiographic (ECG) and respiratory plethysmographic (Pleth) signals were continuously and concurrently recorded, sampled at 1KHz and analyzed from 4 patients with refractory epilepsy during phase II surgical evaluation within the Centers Without Walls initiative for SUDEP research [5]. The measure of generalized partial directed coherence (GPDC) [6] was employed to measure the directional effective connectivity per frequency (1 to 200Hz) between the brain, lungs and heart by using a multivariate autoregressive model (MVAR) of order 7 over consecutive and non-overlapping 10 sec segments for the entire record per patient.

Results: The directional effective connectivity (DEC) for the
Translational Research