Epilepsy
Teen goes from 10 nightly seizures to zero with brain implant
Minimally invasive procedure at the Mayo Clinic uses NeuroOne's cutting-edge brain implant technology. Imagine waking up seizure-free after years of suffering. For 17-year-old Clara Fuller, this dream became reality thanks to groundbreaking brain implant technology. Her journey from relentless seizures to a normal teenage life highlights the incredible potential of medical innovation. GET SECURITY ALERTS & EXPERT TECH TIPS – SIGN UP FOR KURT'S'THE CYBERGUY REPORT' NOW At just 13, Clara began experiencing uncontrollable seizures that baffled doctors.
SeizureTransformer: Scaling U-Net with Transformer for Simultaneous Time-Step Level Seizure Detection from Long EEG Recordings
Wu, Kerui, Zhao, Ziyue, Yener, Bülent
--Epilepsy is a common neurological disorder that affects around 65 million people worldwide. Detecting seizures quickly and accurately is vital, given the prevalence and severity of the associated complications. Recently, deep learning-based automated seizure detection methods have emerged as solutions; however, most existing methods require extensive post-processing and do not effectively handle the crucial long-range patterns in EEG data. In this work, we propose SeizureTransformer, a simple model comprised of (i) a deep encoder comprising 1D convolutions (ii) a residual CNN stack and a transformer encoder to embed previous output into high-level representation with contextual information, and (iii) streamlined decoder which converts these features into a sequence of probabilities, directly indicating the presence or absence of seizures at every time step. Extensive experiments on public and private EEG seizure detection datasets demonstrate that our model significantly outperforms existing approaches (ranked in the first place in the 2025 "seizure detection challenge" organized in the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Epilepsy and Other Neurological Disorders), underscoring its potential for real-time, precise seizure detection. Epilepsy is a prevalent neurological disorder distinguished by recurring seizures. Worldwide, there are approximately 65 million people with epilepsy, more than Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and Multiple Sclerosis combined.
DMNet: Self-comparison Driven Model for Subject-independent Seizure Detection
Automated seizure detection (ASD) using intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) is critical for effective epilepsy treatment. However, the significant domain shift of iEEG signals across subjects poses a major challenge, limiting their applicability in real-world clinical scenarios. In this paper, we address this issue by analyzing the primary cause behind the failure of existing iEEG models for subject-independent seizure detection, and identify a critical universal seizure pattern: seizure events consistently exhibit higher average amplitude compared to adjacent normal events. To mitigate the domain shifts and preserve the universal seizure patterns, we propose a novel self-comparison mechanism.
DMNet: Self-comparison Driven Model for Subject-independent Seizure Detection
Automated seizure detection (ASD) using intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) is critical for effective epilepsy treatment. However, the significant domain shift of iEEG signals across subjects poses a major challenge, limiting their applicability in real-world clinical scenarios. In this paper, we address this issue by analyzing the primary cause behind the failure of existing iEEG models for subject-independent seizure detection, and identify a critical universal seizure pattern: seizure events consistently exhibit higher average amplitude compared to adjacent normal events. To mitigate the domain shifts and preserve the universal seizure patterns, we propose a novel self-comparison mechanism. Building upon these findings, we propose Difference Matrix-based Neural Network (DMNet), a subject-independent seizure detection model, which leverages self-comparison based on two constructed (contextual, channel-level) references to mitigate shifts of iEEG, and utilize a simple yet effective difference matrix to encode the universal seizure patterns.
MT-NAM: An Efficient and Adaptive Model for Epileptic Seizure Detection
Afzal, Arshia, Cevher, Volkan, Shoaran, Mahsa
Enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of machine learning algorithms employed in neural interface systems is crucial for advancing next-generation intelligent therapeutic devices. However, current systems often utilize basic machine learning models that do not fully exploit the natural structure of brain signals. Additionally, existing learning models used for neural signal processing often demonstrate low speed and efficiency during inference. To address these challenges, this study introduces Micro Tree-based NAM (MT-NAM), a distilled model based on the recently proposed Neural Additive Models (NAM). The MT-NAM achieves a remarkable 100$\times$ improvement in inference speed compared to standard NAM, without compromising accuracy. We evaluate our approach on the CHB-MIT scalp EEG dataset, which includes recordings from 24 patients with varying numbers of sessions and seizures. NAM achieves an 85.3\% window-based sensitivity and 95\% specificity. Interestingly, our proposed MT-NAM shows only a 2\% reduction in sensitivity compared to the original NAM. To regain this sensitivity, we utilize a test-time template adjuster (T3A) as an update mechanism, enabling our model to achieve higher sensitivity during test time by accommodating transient shifts in neural signals. With this online update approach, MT-NAM achieves the same sensitivity as the standard NAM while achieving approximately 50$\times$ acceleration in inference speed.
Censoring-Aware Tree-Based Reinforcement Learning for Estimating Dynamic Treatment Regimes with Censored Outcomes
Paul, Animesh Kumar, Greiner, Russell
Dynamic Treatment Regimes (DTRs) provide a systematic approach for making sequential treatment decisions that adapt to individual patient characteristics, particularly in clinical contexts where survival outcomes are of interest. Censoring-Aware Tree-Based Reinforcement Learning (CA-TRL) is a novel framework to address the complexities associated with censored data when estimating optimal DTRs. We explore ways to learn effective DTRs, from observational data. By enhancing traditional tree-based reinforcement learning methods with augmented inverse probability weighting (AIPW) and censoring-aware modifications, CA-TRL delivers robust and interpretable treatment strategies. We demonstrate its effectiveness through extensive simulations and real-world applications using the SANAD epilepsy dataset, where it outperformed the recently proposed ASCL method in key metrics such as restricted mean survival time (RMST) and decision-making accuracy. This work represents a step forward in advancing personalized and data-driven treatment strategies across diverse healthcare settings.
Epilepsy AI tool detects brain lesions doctors miss
Study co-author and childhood epilepsy consultant Prof Helen Cross said it had the potential "to rapidly identify abnormalities that can be removed and potentially cure the epilepsy". Uncontrolled epilepsy was "incapacitating", she said. Many of the children she sees as a consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital have had years of seizures and investigations before a lesion is found. Charity Epilepsy Action said the new AI tool's potential was "really exciting" and could give people faster diagnosis, but did not solve the issue of lack of specialist epilepsy nurses in England. "It remains early days and, as always, we must proceed with caution," said Ley Sander from the Epilepsy Society, adding that if the tool could identify more people as candidates for brain surgery, that could be "life-changing for many more people with epilepsy".
Deep Learning-Powered Electrical Brain Signals Analysis: Advancing Neurological Diagnostics
Li, Jiahe, Chen, Xin, Shen, Fanqi, Chen, Junru, Liu, Yuxin, Zhang, Daoze, Yuan, Zhizhang, Zhao, Fang, Li, Meng, Yang, Yang
Neurological disorders represent significant global health challenges, driving the advancement of brain signal analysis methods. Scalp electroencephalography (EEG) and intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) are widely used to diagnose and monitor neurological conditions. However, dataset heterogeneity and task variations pose challenges in developing robust deep learning solutions. This review systematically examines recent advances in deep learning approaches for EEG/iEEG-based neurological diagnostics, focusing on applications across 7 neurological conditions using 46 datasets. We explore trends in data utilization, model design, and task-specific adaptations, highlighting the importance of pre-trained multi-task models for scalable, generalizable solutions. To advance research, we propose a standardized benchmark for evaluating models across diverse datasets to enhance reproducibility. This survey emphasizes how recent innovations can transform neurological diagnostics and enable the development of intelligent, adaptable healthcare solutions.
Graph-Based Deep Learning on Stereo EEG for Predicting Seizure Freedom in Epilepsy Patients
Agaronyan, Artur, Amir, Syeda Abeera, Wittayanakorn, Nunthasiri, Schreiber, John, Linguraru, Marius G., Gaillard, William, Oluigbo, Chima, Anwar, Syed Muhammad
Predicting seizure freedom is essential for tailoring epilepsy treatment. But accurate prediction remains challenging with traditional methods, especially with diverse patient populations. This study developed a deep learning-based graph neural network (GNN) model to predict seizure freedom from stereo electroencephalography (sEEG) data in patients with refractory epilepsy. We utilized high-quality sEEG data from 15 pediatric patients to train a deep learning model that can accurately predict seizure freedom outcomes and advance understanding of brain connectivity at the seizure onset zone. Our model integrates local and global connectivity using graph convolutions with multi-scale attention mechanisms to capture connections between difficult-to-study regions such as the thalamus and motor regions. The model achieved an accuracy of 92.4% in binary class analysis, 86.6% in patient-wise analysis, and 81.4% in multi-class analysis. Node and edge-level feature analysis highlighted the anterior cingulate and frontal pole regions as key contributors to seizure freedom outcomes. The nodes identified by our model were also more likely to coincide with seizure onset zones. Our findings underscore the potential of new connectivity-based deep learning models such as GNNs for enhancing the prediction of seizure freedom, predicting seizure onset zones, connectivity analysis of the brain during seizure, as well as informing AI-assisted personalized epilepsy treatment planning.
PPi: Pretraining Brain Signal Model for Patient-independent Seizure Detection
Automated seizure detection is of great importance to epilepsy diagnosis and treatment. An emerging method used in seizure detection, stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG), can provide detailed and stereoscopic brainwave information. However, modeling SEEG in clinical scenarios will face challenges like huge domain shift between different patients and dramatic pattern evolution among different brain areas. In this study, we propose a Pretraining-based model for Patient-independent seizure detection (PPi) to address these challenges. Firstly, we design two novel self-supervised tasks which can extract rich information from abundant SEEG data while preserving the unique characteristics between brain signals recorded from different brain areas. Then two techniques, channel background subtraction and brain region enhancement, are proposed to effectively tackle the domain shift problem. Extensive experiments show that PPi outperforms the SOTA baselines on two public datasets and a real-world clinical dataset collected by us, which demonstrates the effectiveness and practicability of PPi. Finally, visualization analysis illustrates the rationality of the two domain generalization techniques.