What happens in the brain during an epileptic seizure? (Ren)
However, due to the abnormality and complexity of brain network, the clinical epileptologists cannot guarantee the complete removal of epilepsy focus, which will cause some patients to have different levels of seizures even after the surgery. The purpose of MSc Ye Ren’s dissertational research was to investigate the characteristics of brain connectivity and to explore more accurate localization methods of the epileptic focus in drug-resistant epilepsy.
The research found the spatial specificity of phase-amplitude modulation and the newfound ‘fall-max’ phase-amplitude pattern in the middle period of seizure to be an important neurophysiological characteristic and a promising biomarker respectively. According to Ren’s research, this could be a good tool for lateralization and localization of the epileptic focus and provide insight into the underlying neural dynamics of the epileptic seizures. Moreover, high temporal resolution effective connectivity measure combined with different graph metrics was also able to provide more precise localization of the epileptic focus in drug-resistant epilepsy.
During the research, Ye Ren used some measures, such as phase synchronization, phase-amplitude coupling, directed transfer function, and graph theory, to measure the time-variant brain network at different seizure periods (pre-, onset, middle, termination, post-) on both electroencephalogram and electrocorticogram data in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.
Ye’s research provides insights into the underlying mechanism of epileptic brain network connectivity and an important reference value for preoperative localization and intraoperative resection of epileptic focus for patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, which could improve the localization accuracy, reduce the probability of epileptic seizures, as well as accelerate therapies to stop seizures and save lives.
MSc Ye Ren defends her doctoral dissertation in Mathematical Information Technology “Brain connectivity analysis in epilepsy for epileptogenic focus localization” on December 14th, 2019 at the Ģֱ, Finland. The event is held in the Agora-building (Mattilanniemi 2, 40100 Jyväskylä), hall Alfa, starting at 12 pm. The opponent is Professor Tarmo Lipping (University of Tampere) and Custos Professor Tapani Ristaniemi (Ģֱ). The doctoral dissertation is held in English.
Further information:
Ye Ren, ren.ye@foxmail.com, +358 466180578 or +86 18618129631
The dissertation is published in JYU dissertations, number 159. ISSN 2489-9003, ISBN 978-951-39-7954-6 (PDF). Link to the publication:
Ye Ren completed the Bachelor of Engineering in 2012 and Master of Engineering in 2015 at Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China. She has been doing PhD research and studies in the Faculty of Information Technology at the Ģֱ and doing research work at Beijing Luhe Hospital, Capital Medical University since 2015.