In a recent study, researchers on the Cook Children’s Neurology team examined the temporal relationship between electrographic features on an EEG known as spikes, ripples and fast ripples, and assessed the ability of these EEG features (and their combinations) to indicate the brain area that causes seizures; better isolation and targeting of this brain area for resective surgery could improve surgical outcomes.
Spikes are the most established of these features, or biomarkers, of epilepsy that occur between seizures. Yet, spikes may not be the most specific biomarker and indicator of a surgical target area since they are only partially consistent with the area of the brain that causes seizures and are often found in areas that are non-epileptogenic. High-frequency oscillations (HFOs), the fast oscillatory activity generated by the human brain, are considered more specific biomarkers of epilepsy than spikes.
