Localization of Epileptic Foci Based on Simultaneous EEG–fMRI Data

Seyyed Mostafa Sajadi۱, Elias Ebrahimzadeh۱,۲,Mohammad Shams۳,Masoud Seraji۴,۵and Hamid Soltanian-Zadeh۱,۲,۶

۱Control and Intelligent Processing Center of Excellence (CIPCE), School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

۲Neuroimage Signal and Image Analysis Group, School of Cognitive Sciences, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran, Iran

۳Neural Engineering Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, United States

۴Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, United States

۵Behavioral and Neural Sciences Graduate Program, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ, United States

۶Medical Image Analysis Laboratory, Departments of Radiology and Research Administration, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI, United States

Combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) enables a non-invasive investigation of the human brain function and evaluation of the correlation of these two important modalities of brain activity. This paper explores recent reports on using advanced simultaneous EEG–fMRI methods proposed to map the regions and networks involved in focal epileptic seizure generation. One of the applications of EEG and fMRI combination as a valuable clinical approach is the pre-surgical evaluation of patients with epilepsy to map and localize the precise brain regions associated with epileptiform activity. In the process of conventional analysis using EEG–fMRI data, the interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) are visually extracted from the EEG data to be convolved as binary events with a predefined hemodynamic response function (HRF) to provide a model of epileptiform BOLD activity and use as a regressor for general linear model (GLM) analysis of the fMRI data. This review examines the methodologies involved in performing such studies, including techniques used for the recording of EEG inside the scanner, artifact removal, and statistical analysis of the fMRI signal. It then discusses the results reported for patients with primary generalized epilepsy and patients with different types of focal epileptic disorders. An important matter that these results have brought to light is that the brain regions affected by interictal epileptic discharges might not be limited to the ones where they have been generated. The developed methods can help reveal the regions involved in or affected by a seizure onset zone (SOZ). As confirmed by the reviewed literature, EEG–fMRI provides information that comes particularly useful when evaluating patients with refractory epilepsy for surgery