Optimum duration of hyperventilation during electroencephalography.

Hyperventilation (HV) is carried out for 3 minutes as a standard activation procedure in most routine electroencephalographic (EEG) procedures. The cerebral blood flow (CBF) reduction and the accompanying cerebral vasoconstriction caused by HV is believed to be the mechanism of EEG activation during HV. Some advocate for 5 minutes of HV, although the optimum duration is unknown.

Cerebral blood flow dynamics before, during, and after seizures from epilepsy and the periictal state.

Changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF) in the human cerebral cortex during surgery were reported by Penfield. However, data on continuous CBF during seizures were not available until Carter et al developed a subdural CBF probe for measuring continuous CBF. This probe used thermal resistor methodology and was developed to study patients with head trauma.

Epileptic Seizure Detection and Prediction Based on Continuous Cerebral Blood Flow Monitoring--a Review.

Epilepsy is the third most common neurological illness, affecting 1% of the world's population. Despite advances in medicine, about 25 to 30% of the patients do not respond to or cannot tolerate the severe side effects of medical treatment, and surgery is not an option for the majority of patients with epilepsy. The objective of this article is to review the current state of research on seizure detection based on cerebral blood flow (CBF) data acquired by thermal diffusion flowmetry (TDF), and CBF-based seizure prediction.

Electrical stimulation of the anterior nucleus of thalamus for treatment of refractory epilepsy.

Purpose: We report a multicenter, double-blind, randomized trial of bilateral stimulation of the anterior nuclei of the thalamus for localization-related epilepsy.

Methods: Participants were adults with medically refractory partial seizures, including secondarily generalized seizures. Half received stimulation and half no stimulation during a 3-month blinded phase; then all received unblinded stimulation.

Ictal asystole--late manifestation of partial epilepsy and importance of cardiac pacemaker.

Ictal asystole (IA) is a life-threatening complication of epilepsy and is a potential mechanism of sudden unexplained death in epilepsy (SUDEP). This entity has been proven by multiple case reports and small case series. The management of the patients with IA is still in early phase of discussion.

The relative localizing value of interictal and immediate postictal SPECT in seizures of temporal lobe origin.

Unlabelled: Although interictal hypoperfusion and ictal hyperperfusion are established localizing findings in partial epilepsy, their relative value is disputed. After a meta analysis of several published articles on SPECT brain imaging in patients with epilepsy (with extractable data on at least 6 patients per article), institutions using SPECT for evaluation of epilepsy have been encouraged to perform ictal scanning or interictal and postictal SPECT studies.

Methods: We compared the relative localizing values of hypoperfusion in video-electroencephalographically (EEG) monitored interictal SPECT (IISPECT) and hyperperfusion in immediate postictal or periictal SPECT (PISPECT) in nonlesional patients who underwent temporal lobectomies in our epilepsy center from 1995 to 1998.