This paper reports the findings from a pilot study of four patients with medically refractory epilepsy undergoing pre-surgical evaluation with ages ranging from 5 to 17 years. Video electroencephalography recordings and data from a near infrared spectroscopy cerebral/somatic oximeter were gathered and related to electrographic seizure onset and offset as determined by a paediatric epileptologist. All four patients showed haemodynamic changes associated with epileptiform activities. The increased blood flow clearly coincided with epileptiform activity and continued to increase as the epileptiform activity built up. Regional cerebral oxygen saturation increased in the epileptogenic focus, perhaps due to loss of cerebrovascular autoregulation. These findings reinforce that near infrared spectroscopy can potentially be used in a wide spectrum of patients with epilepsy regardless of the underlying brain pathology.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.