AUTHOR=Mao Jun-Wei, Ye Xiao-Lai, Li Yong-Hua, Liang Pei-Ji, Xu Ji-Wen, Zhang Pu-Ming TITLE=Dynamic Network Connectivity Analysis to Identify Epileptogenic Zones Based on Stereo-Electroencephalography JOURNAL=Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience VOLUME=10 YEAR=2016 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncom.2016.00113 DOI=10.3389/fncom.2016.00113 ISSN=1662-5188 ABSTRACT=Objectives: Accurate localization of epileptogenic zones (EZs) is essential for successful surgical treatment of refractory focal epilepsy. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether a dynamic network connectivity analysis based on stereo-electroencephalography (SEEG) signals is effective in localizing EZs.Methods: SEEG data were recorded from seven patients who underwent presurgical evaluation for the treatment of refractory focal epilepsy and for whom the subsequent resective surgery gave a good outcome. A time-variant multivariate autoregressive model was constructed using a Kalman filter, and the time-variant partial directed coherence was computed. This was then used to construct a dynamic directed network model of the epileptic brain. Three graph measures (in-degree, out-degree, and betweenness centrality) were used to analyze the characteristics of the dynamic network and to find the important nodes in it.Results: In all seven patients, the indicative EZs localized by the in-degree and the betweenness centrality were highly consistent with the clinically diagnosed EZs. However, the out-degree did not indicate any significant differences between nodes in the network.Conclusions: In this work, a method based on ictal SEEG signals and effective connectivity analysis localized EZs accurately. The results suggest that the in-degree and betweenness centrality may be better network characteristics to localize EZs than the out-degree.