Analysis of Epileptic Events Using Wavelet Packets

Nisrine Sinno and Kifah Tout
Department of Computer Science, Lebanese University, Lebanon

Abstract: Many studies have focused on the nonlinear analysis of electroencephalography mainly for the characterization of epileptic brain states. The spatial and temporal dynamics of the epileptogenic process is still not clear completely especially the most challenging aspects of epileptology which is the anticipation of the seizure. Despite all the efforts we still don’t know how and when and why the seizure occurs. However actual studies bring strong evidence that the interictal-ictal state transition is not an abrupt phenomena. Findings also indicate that it is possible to detect a preseizure phase. We will study the patients admitted to the epilepsy monitoring unit for the purpose of recording their seizures. These patients have their EEG signal recorded 24 hours a day for several days until they have enough number of seizures to determine eligibility for seizure surgery. Thus, preictal, ictal, and post ictal electroencephalography recordings are available on such patients for analysis. We propose to use wavelet analysis in order to investigate a case study of the electroencephalography  signal and determine the localization of the seizure and its characteristics.

Keywords: Epilepsy analysis, wavelet, spike detection.

Received June 12, 2006; accepted June 13, 2007