Sudden, Synchronous and Sensitive; EEG Mirrors of Epilepsy
Research Question
What is the optimal combination of characteristics that delineates epileptogenic tissue to enable effective epilepsy surgery and aid overall understanding, diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy?
Project Description
The hallmarks of epilepsy are seizures, that typically arise suddenly, yield synchronous (muscle) activity and are sensitive to triggers. High frequency oscillations are novel electrographical biomarkers of epilepsy in EEG between seizures. These events occur suddenly, represent hypersynchronous firing of neurons and are sensitive to external influences, thus their characteristics mirror seizures themselves. Several separate signal analysis methods can distinguish these epileptic EEG characteristics: the autoregressive residual measures the unpredictability of the signal, functionally connectivity measure synchronicity of neuronal firing and phase coupling relates the responsiveness of high frequency oscillations to large network slow frequencies. I want to find the optimal combination of characteristics that delineates epileptogenic tissue to enable effective epilepsy surgery and aid overall understanding, diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. I want to spend the fellowship on writing a contemporary review and VIDI grant application and increasing my personal visibility with a workshop and a personal webpage.
Selected Publications
van Campen JS, Hompe EL, Jansen FE, Velis DN, Otte WM, van de Berg F, Braun KP, Visser GH, Sander JW, Joels M, Zijlmans M. Cortisol fluctuations relate to interictal epileptiform discharges in stress sensitive epilepsy. Brain 2016
van ‘t Klooster MA, van Klink NE, Leijten FS, Zelmann R, Gebbink TA, Gosselaar PH, Braun KP, Huiskamp GJ, Zijlmans M. Residual fast ripples in the intraoperative corticogram predict epilepsy surgery outcome. Neurology 2015