Neonatal seizures: Is there a relationship between ictal electroclinical features and etiology? A critical appraisal based on a systematic literature review.

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether specific etiologies of neonatal seizures have distinct ictal electroclinical features. A systematic review of English articles using the PubMed database since 2004 (last update 9/26/16). Search terms included text words and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms related to neonatal seizures.

Mortality in individuals with intellectual disabilities in Finland.

Objectives: This study aimed at ascertaining the standardized mortality ratios (SMR) for those with an intellectual disability (ID) in Finland.

Materials And Methods: We used the statistical database of the national insurance institution of Finland and Statistics Finland's mean population figures. We determined the number of individuals who received benefits (disability allowance, disability pension, or care allowance for pensioners) due to an ID diagnosis and the number of those whose benefit had been terminated due to death during the years 1996-2011.

Interobserver agreement for neonatal seizure detection using multichannel EEG.

Objective: To determine the interobserver agreement (IOA) of neonatal seizure detection using the gold standard of conventional, multichannel EEG.

Methods: A cohort of full-term neonates at risk of acute encephalopathy was included in this prospective study. The EEG recordings of these neonates were independently reviewed for seizures by three international experts.

Objective differentiation of neonatal EEG background grades using detrended fluctuation analysis.

A quantitative and objective assessment of background electroencephalograph (EEG) in sick neonates remains an everyday clinical challenge. We studied whether long range temporal correlations quantified by detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) could be used in the neonatal EEG to distinguish different grades of abnormality in the background EEG activity. Long-term EEG records of 34 neonates were collected after perinatal asphyxia, and their background was scored in 1 h epochs (8 h in each neonate) as mild, moderate or severe.

Interhemispheric synchrony in the neonatal EEG revisited: activation synchrony index as a promising classifier.

A key feature of normal neonatal EEG at term age is interhemispheric synchrony (IHS), which refers to the temporal co-incidence of bursting across hemispheres during trace alternant EEG activity. The assessment of IHS in both clinical and scientific work relies on visual, qualitative EEG assessment without clearly quantifiable definitions. A quantitative measure, activation synchrony index (ASI), was recently shown to perform well as compared to visual assessments.