Expert system approach to detection of epileptiform activity in the EEG

An expert system for the automated detection of spikes and sharp waves in the EEG has been developed. The system consists of two distinct stages. The first is a feature extractor, written in the conventional procedural language Fortran, which uses parts of previously published spike-detection, algorithms to produce a list of all spike-like occurrences in the EEG. The second stage, written in the production system language OPS5, reads the list and uses rules incorporating knowledge elicited from an electroencephalographer (EEGer) to confirm or exclude each of the possible spikes. Information such as the time of occurrence, polarity and channel relationship are used in this process. A summary of thedetected epileptiform events is produced which is available to the EEGer in interpreting the EEG. The performance of the expert system is compared with an EEGer using a 320s segment from an EEG containing epileptiform activity. The system detected 19 events and missed seven (false negative) which the EEGer considered epileptiform. There were no false positive detections.

[1]  H R Townsend,et al.  The automatic estimation of epileptic spike activity. , 1973, International journal of bio-medical computing.

[2]  J. Gotman,et al.  Automatic recognition and quantification of interictal epileptic activity in the human scalp EEG. , 1976, Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology.

[3]  P. Ktonas,et al.  Computer-aided quantification of EEG spike and sharp wave characteristics. , 1981, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[4]  Charles L. Forgy,et al.  OPS5 user's manual , 1981 .

[5]  Ktonas Py.  Automated analysis of abnormal electroencephalograms. , 1983 .

[6]  Frederick Hayes-Roth,et al.  Rule-based systems , 1985, CACM.

[7]  Kaoru Arakawa,et al.  Separation of a Nonstationary Component from the EEG by a Nonlinear Digital Filter , 1986, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.

[8]  John R. Glover,et al.  A Multichannel Signal Processor for the Detection of Epileptogenic Sharp Transients in the EEG , 1986, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering.