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Active probing to highlight approaching transitions to ictal states in coupled neural mass models
The extraction of electrophysiological features that reliably forecast the occurrence of seizures is one of the most challenging goals in epilepsy research. Among possible approaches to tackle this problem is the use of active probing paradigms in which responses to stimuli are used to detect underl...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7861539/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33493165 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008377 |
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author | Carvalho, Vinícius Rezende Moraes, Márcio Flávio Dutra Cash, Sydney S. Mendes, Eduardo Mazoni Andrade Marçal |
author_facet | Carvalho, Vinícius Rezende Moraes, Márcio Flávio Dutra Cash, Sydney S. Mendes, Eduardo Mazoni Andrade Marçal |
author_sort | Carvalho, Vinícius Rezende |
collection | PubMed |
description | The extraction of electrophysiological features that reliably forecast the occurrence of seizures is one of the most challenging goals in epilepsy research. Among possible approaches to tackle this problem is the use of active probing paradigms in which responses to stimuli are used to detect underlying system changes leading up to seizures. This work evaluates the theoretical and mechanistic underpinnings of this strategy using two coupled populations of the well-studied Wendling neural mass model. Different model settings are evaluated, shifting parameters (excitability, slow inhibition, or inter-population coupling gains) from normal towards ictal states while probing stimuli are applied every 2 seconds to the input of either one or both populations. The correlation between the extracted features and the ictogenic parameter shifting indicates if the impending transition to the ictal state may be identified in advance. Results show that not only can the response to the probing stimuli forecast seizures but this is true regardless of the altered ictogenic parameter. That is, similar feature changes are highlighted by probing stimuli responses in advance of the seizure including: increased response variance and lag-1 autocorrelation, decreased skewness, and increased mutual information between the outputs of both model subsets. These changes were mostly restricted to the stimulated population, showing a local effect of this perturbational approach. The transition latencies from normal activity to sustained discharges of spikes were not affected, suggesting that stimuli had no pro-ictal effects. However, stimuli were found to elicit interictal-like spikes just before the transition to the ictal state. Furthermore, the observed feature changes highlighted by probing the neuronal populations may reflect the phenomenon of critical slowing down, where increased recovery times from perturbations may signal the loss of a systems’ resilience and are common hallmarks of an impending critical transition. These results provide more evidence that active probing approaches highlight information about underlying system changes involved in ictogenesis and may be able to play a role in assisting seizure forecasting methods which can be incorporated into early-warning systems that ultimately enable closing the loop for targeted seizure-controlling interventions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7861539 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-78615392021-02-12 Active probing to highlight approaching transitions to ictal states in coupled neural mass models Carvalho, Vinícius Rezende Moraes, Márcio Flávio Dutra Cash, Sydney S. Mendes, Eduardo Mazoni Andrade Marçal PLoS Comput Biol Research Article The extraction of electrophysiological features that reliably forecast the occurrence of seizures is one of the most challenging goals in epilepsy research. Among possible approaches to tackle this problem is the use of active probing paradigms in which responses to stimuli are used to detect underlying system changes leading up to seizures. This work evaluates the theoretical and mechanistic underpinnings of this strategy using two coupled populations of the well-studied Wendling neural mass model. Different model settings are evaluated, shifting parameters (excitability, slow inhibition, or inter-population coupling gains) from normal towards ictal states while probing stimuli are applied every 2 seconds to the input of either one or both populations. The correlation between the extracted features and the ictogenic parameter shifting indicates if the impending transition to the ictal state may be identified in advance. Results show that not only can the response to the probing stimuli forecast seizures but this is true regardless of the altered ictogenic parameter. That is, similar feature changes are highlighted by probing stimuli responses in advance of the seizure including: increased response variance and lag-1 autocorrelation, decreased skewness, and increased mutual information between the outputs of both model subsets. These changes were mostly restricted to the stimulated population, showing a local effect of this perturbational approach. The transition latencies from normal activity to sustained discharges of spikes were not affected, suggesting that stimuli had no pro-ictal effects. However, stimuli were found to elicit interictal-like spikes just before the transition to the ictal state. Furthermore, the observed feature changes highlighted by probing the neuronal populations may reflect the phenomenon of critical slowing down, where increased recovery times from perturbations may signal the loss of a systems’ resilience and are common hallmarks of an impending critical transition. These results provide more evidence that active probing approaches highlight information about underlying system changes involved in ictogenesis and may be able to play a role in assisting seizure forecasting methods which can be incorporated into early-warning systems that ultimately enable closing the loop for targeted seizure-controlling interventions. Public Library of Science 2021-01-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7861539/ /pubmed/33493165 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008377 Text en © 2021 Carvalho et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Carvalho, Vinícius Rezende Moraes, Márcio Flávio Dutra Cash, Sydney S. Mendes, Eduardo Mazoni Andrade Marçal Active probing to highlight approaching transitions to ictal states in coupled neural mass models |
title | Active probing to highlight approaching transitions to ictal states in coupled neural mass models |
title_full | Active probing to highlight approaching transitions to ictal states in coupled neural mass models |
title_fullStr | Active probing to highlight approaching transitions to ictal states in coupled neural mass models |
title_full_unstemmed | Active probing to highlight approaching transitions to ictal states in coupled neural mass models |
title_short | Active probing to highlight approaching transitions to ictal states in coupled neural mass models |
title_sort | active probing to highlight approaching transitions to ictal states in coupled neural mass models |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7861539/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33493165 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008377 |
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