Network Analysis of Foramen Ovale Electrode Recordings in Drug-resistant Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Patients

SANZ-GARCÍA, ANCOR; VEGA-ZELAYA, LORENA; PASTOR, JESÚS; TORRES, CRISTINA V.; SOLA, RAFAEL G.; ORTEGA, GUILLERMO J.

Journal of Visualized Experiments

MyJove Corp.

Lugar: Cambridge; Año: 2016

Approximately 30% of epilepsy patients are refractory to antiepileptic drugs. In these cases, surgery is the only alternative to eliminate/controlseizures. However, a significant minority of patients continues to exhibit post-operative seizures, even in those cases in which the suspectedsource of seizures has been correctly localized and resected. The protocol presented here combines a clinical procedure routinely employedduring the pre-operative evaluation of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients with a novel technique for network analysis. The method allows forthe evaluation of the temporal evolution of mesial network parameters. The bilateral insertion of foramen ovale electrodes (FOE) into the ambientcistern simultaneously records electrocortical activity at several mesial areas in the temporal lobe. Furthermore, network methodology applied tothe recorded time series tracks the temporal evolution of the mesial networks both interictally and during the seizures. In this way, the presentedprotocol offers a unique way to visualize and quantify measures that considers the relationships between several mesial areas instead of a singlearea.