Connectivity detection in application to spike-wave discharge study

Anastasia A Grishchenko,Boris P Bezruchko,Marina V Sysoeva,Tatiana M Medvedeva,Ilya V Sysoev,Clementina M Van Rijn

doi:10.35470/2226-4116-2020-9-2-86-97

Abstract

In our study, we compare three popular approaches to directed coupling analysis, in particular transfer entropy and two types of Granger causality, applied to real data from genetic absence epilepsy rats. We have chosen the channels for which the coupling architecture is already well known from previous studies. Recordings from 5 WAG/Rij rats of 8 hours duration with at least 28 spontaneous seizures of length not less than 6 s in each recording were studied. To test results for significance, surrogate signals based on series permutation technique were constructed. Connectivity development in time was investigated by considering six two-second intervals before, during and after the seizure. Our outcomes showed large differences between studied approaches, while all of them exploit the same general idea. Transfer entropy demonstrated the smallest number of significant couplings throughout all three considered measures, while the linear Granger causality showed the largest number of them. This indicates that transfer entropy is the most conservative measure and the least sensitive one. Its sensitivity is affected by insufficient series length. The linear Granger causality is likely to demonstrate insufficient specificity.

Highlights

In this paper, we aim to investigate the variability of coupling estimation results using different directed approaches in application to brain connectivity study
The hippocampus is a part of the limbic system, which is traditionally considered to be not involved in absence seizures [Luttjohann and van Luijtelaar, 2015]
The results of linear Granger causality application to LFP data by [Sitnikova et al, 2008] were reconsidered by [Sysoeva et al, 2014], showing different effects,

Summary

Introduction

We aim to investigate the variability of coupling estimation results using different directed approaches in application to brain connectivity study. There is a number of reviews on coupling method comparison till including those which consider primary neurophysiological applications, see [Pereda et al, 2005; Gourevitch et al, 2006; Bezruchko et al, 2008]. These comparisons were mostly done based on simu-. 2, 2020 lated data, since such an approach provides full control, all couplings are reliably known and may be set by hand The idea of such an approach is quite clear: first, to study the method reliability on simulated examples, and second, to get some new results from experimental data. We consider cortico-thalamo-cortical network involved into absence seizures as such a system

Objectives

Results

Conclusion