Continuous EEG-fMRI in patients with partial epilepsy and focal interictal slow-wave discharges on EEG

Purpose

To verify whether in patients with partial epilepsy and routine electroenecephalogram (EEG) showing focal interictal slow-wave discharges without spikes combined EEG–functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) would localize the corresponding epileptogenic focus, thus providing reliable information on the epileptic source.

Methods

Eight patients with partial epileptic seizures whose routine scalp EEG recordings on presentation showed focal interictal slow-wave activity underwent EEG–fMRI. EEG data were continuously recorded for 24 min (four concatenated sessions) from 18 scalp electrodes, while fMRI scans were simultaneously acquired with a 1.5-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. After recording sessions and MRI artefact removal, EEG data were analyzed offline. We compared blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes on fMRI with EEG recordings obtained at rest and during activation (with and without focal interictal slow-wave discharges).

Results

In all patients, when the EEG tracing showed the onset of focal slow-wave discharges on a few lateralized electrodes, BOLD-fMRI activation in the corresponding brain area significantly increased. We detected significant concordance between focal EEG interictal slow-wave discharges and focal BOLD activation on fMRI. In patients with lesional epilepsy, the epileptogenic area corresponded to the sites of increased focal BOLD signal.

Conclusions

Even in patients with partial epilepsy whose standard EEGs show focal interictal slow-wave discharges without spikes, EEG–fMRI can visualize related focal BOLD activation thus providing useful information for pre-surgical planning.     

基于Kendall改进的同步算法癫痫脑网络分析

提出了一种基于Kendall等级相关改进的同步算法IRC(inverse rank correlation).Kendall等级相关是非线性动力学分析的一般化算法,可有效地度量变量间的非线性相关性.复杂网络的研究已逐渐深入到社会科学的各个领域,脑网络的研究已经成为当今脑功能研究的热点.利用改进的IRC算法,基于脑电EEG(electroencephalogram)数据来构建大脑功能性网络.对构建的脑功能网络的度指标进行了分析,以调查癫痫脑功能网络是否异于正常人.结果显示:使用该改进的算法能够对癫痫和正常脑功能网络显著区分,且只需要记录很短的脑电数据.实验结果数据表明,该方法适用于区分癫痫和正常脑组织网络度指标,它可有助于进一步地加深对大脑的神经动力学行为的研究,并为临床诊断提供有效工具.     

First-principles calculations of contact effect on quantum transport in carbon nanotubes

We report first-principles calculations of conductance of carbon nanotubes between metallic electrodes. The electronic states are calculated using a numerical atomic orbital basis set in the framework of the density functional theory, and the conductance is calculated using the Green's function method. We show transmission spectra of carbon nanotubes connected to electrodes and reveal the contact effect of electrodes on the transport properties of nanotubes.     

时变动态贝叶斯网络模型及其在皮层脑电网络连接中的应用

大脑执行语言的发音需要顶叶、颞叶、额叶等多个脑区协同完成.皮层脑电具有高时间分辨率、较高空间分辨率和高信噪比等优势,为研究大脑的电生理特性提供了重要的技术手段.为了探索大脑对语言的动态处理过程,利用多尺度皮层脑电(标准电极与微电极)分析了被试在执行音节朗读任务时的皮层脑电信号的高频gamma段特征,提出采用时变动态贝叶斯网络构建单次实验任务的有向网络.结果显示该方法能够快速有效地构建语言任务过程中标准电极、微电极以及二者之间的有向网络连接,且反映了大规模网络(标准电极之间的连接)、局部网络(微电极之间的连接)以及大规模网络与局部网络之间的连接(标准电极与微电极之间的连接)随语言任务发生的动态改变.研究还发现,发音时刻之前与之后的网络连接存在显著性差异,且发音方式不同的音节网络间也存在明显差异.该研究将有助于癫痫等神经疾病的术前临床评估以及理解大脑对语言加工的实时处理过程.     

Bias drop and phonon emission in molecular wires

Using the recursion-transfer-matrix (RTM) method combined with the non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) method and density-functional theory, we perform ab initio calculations for the electron transport of molecular wires bridged between electrodes. We present an effective potential of molecular wire under a finite bias voltage and discuss the phonon emission and local heating due to inelastic electron-phonon coupling effects. We find that it is strongly dependent on contact conditions. When the contacts to electrodes are bad, excitation phonon modes at contacts become dominant for the energy dissipation.     

First-principles study on current through a single π conjugate molecule for analysis of carrier injection through an organic/metal interface

We have studied current flow through a single π conjugate molecule weakly adsorbed to, and sandwiched between, two electrodes, focusing specifically on carrier injection through an organic/metal interface. This is the first calculation to investigate the effects of the orientation of the molecule and the electrode material on current using a first-principles method: in the past, most calculations of current were based on the assumption of covalent bonding of a molecule to electrodes. We modeled two systems in which a naphthalene molecule is sandwiched between gold (Au) or aluminum (Al) electrodes. First, in both systems, the current through the molecule depends on the orientation of the molecule. This indicates that electrons mainly transfer through the π channel, which is the overlap between the molecular π orbital and the electrode orbital. Next, the current in the Au-naphthalene-Au system is higher than that in the Al-naphthalene-Al system. This shows that Au is more suitable as an electrode material than Al. Therefore, the orientation of the molecule at an organic/metal interface and the materials comprising the electrodes play a key role in carrier injection through the interface.     

Effects of atomic-scale contacts on transport properties through single molecules - ab initio study

Using the RTM/NEGF method, which is a first-principles calculation tool for the quantum transport through nanostructures between electrodes, we study the effects of atomic-scale contacts on the transport properties through single molecules. Electronic states and current-voltage (I-V) characteristics are investigated in various contact conditions with and without single molecules between electrodes. We find that similar nonlinear behaviors appear in the I-V characteristics. Such nonlinear behaviors are determined not only by the HOMO-LUMO electronic states of single molecules between electrodes, but also by the atomic-scale contact conditions. We show that the transitions from tunneling to ballistic regimes affect the I-V characteristics significantly.     

Symbolic transfer entropy

We propose to estimate transfer entropy using a technique of symbolization. We demonstrate numerically that symbolic transfer entropy is a robust and computationally fast method to quantify the dominating direction of information flow between time series from structurally identical and nonidentical coupled systems. Analyzing multiday, multichannel electroencephalographic recordings from 15 epilepsy patients our approach allowed us to reliably identify the hemisphere containing the epileptic focus without observing actual seizure activity.     

Nonadiabatic dynamics of electron injection into organic molecules

We numerically investigate the injection process of electrons from metal electrodes to one-dimensional organic molecules by combining the extended Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model with a nonadiabatic dynamics method. It is found that a match between the Fermi level of electrodes and the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) or the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) of organic molecules can be greatly affected by the length of the organic chains, which has a great impact on electron injection. The correlation between oligomers and electrodes is found to open more efficient channels for electron injection as compared with that in polymer/electrode structures. For oligomer/electrode structures, we show that the Schottky barrier essentially does not affect the electron injection as the electrode work function is smaller than a critical value. This means that the Schottky barrier is pinned for a small work-function electrode. For polymer/electrode structures, we find that it is possible for the Fermi level of electrodes to be pinned to the polaronic level. The condition under which the Fermi level of electrodes exceeds the polaronic level of polymers is shown to not always lead to spontaneous electron transfer from electrodes to polymers.     

Modeling of electrically actuated elastomer structures for electro-optical modulation

A transparent elastomer layer sandwiched between two metal electrodes deforms upon voltage application due to electrostatic forces. This structure can be used as tunable waveguide. We investigate structures of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer with 1–30 μm thickness and 40 nm gold electrodes. For extended electrodes the effect size may be calculated analytically as a function of the Poisson ratio. A fully coupled finite-element method (FEM) is used for calculation of the position-dependent deformation in case of structured electrodes. Different geometries are compared concerning actuation effect size and homogeneity. Structuring of the top electrode results in high effect magnitude, but non-uniform deformation concentrated at the electrode edges. Structured bottom electrodes provide good compromise between effect size and homogeneity for electrode widths of 2.75 times the elastomer thickness.     

Estimation of coupling between oscillators from short time series via phase dynamics modeling: limitations and application to EEG data

We demonstrate in numerical experiments that estimators of strength and directionality of coupling between oscillators based on modeling of their phase dynamics [D. A. Smirnov and B. P. Bezruchko, Phys. Rev. E 68, 046209 (2003)] are widely applicable. Namely, although the expressions for the estimators and their confidence bands are derived for linear uncoupled oscillators under the influence of independent sources of Gaussian white noise, they turn out to allow reliable characterization of coupling from relatively short time series for different properties of noise, significant phase nonlinearity of the oscillators, and nonvanishing coupling between them. We apply the estimators to analyze a two-channel human intracranial epileptic electroencephalogram (EEG) recording with the purpose of epileptic focus localization.     

Laser-driven high-resolution patterning of indium tin oxide thin film for electronic device

We here introduce a laser-driven process to pattern transparent thin films on transparent substrates. This method utilizes a pre-patterned metal film as the dynamic release layer and the transparent thin film is selectively removed by a thermo-elastic force laser-induced in the underlying metal layer. High-fidelity indium tin oxide (ITO) thin film patterns were fabricated on plastic and glass substrates using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser. Tens of square centimeters could be patterned with several pulse shots. We fabricated a pentacene thin film transistor with ITO source and drain electrodes and observed a very low off-current level. This tells that the channel area between ITO electrodes was completely etched out by this laser-driven process. Combined with the absence of photoresist and chemical etching steps, this method provides a simple high-resolution route to pattern transparent thin films over large areas at low temperatures.     

Ferroelectric phase transitions in ultrathin films of BaTiO3

We present molecular dynamics simulations of a realistic model of an ultrathin film of BaTiO3 sandwiched between short-circuited electrodes to determine and understand effects of film thickness, epitaxial strain, and the nature of electrodes on its ferroelectric phase transitions as a function of temperature. We determine a full epitaxial strain-temperature phase diagram in the presence of perfect electrodes. Even with the vanishing depolarization field, we find that ferroelectric phase transitions to states with in-plane and out-of-plane components of polarization exhibit dependence on thickness; it arises from the interactions of local dipoles with their electrostatic images in the presence of electrodes. Secondly, in the presence of relatively bad metal electrodes which only partly compensate the surface charges and depolarization field, a qualitatively different phase with stripelike domains is stabilized at low temperature.     

Parameters of free-burning arc discharge plasma in air with silver-based electrodes

We have used optical spectroscopy to study the radial temperature profiles for an electric arc plasma between silver electrodes and electrodes made from composite materials based on silver (Ag-CdO). We studied the structural changes in the working layers of the electrodes by metallography. We established that the parameters of the arc discharge plasma are determined by the condition of the electrode surface. __________ Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 73, No. 3, pp. 375–379, May–June, 2006.     

基于递归量化分析与支持向量机的癫痫脑电自动检测方法

癫痫脑电信号的自动检测对癫痫的临床诊断与治疗具有重要意义.基于递归图(recurrence plot)的递归量化分析(recurrence quantification analysis,RQA)重现了非线性时间序列的动力学行为,分析了其递归特性,本文提出了基于RQA的癫痫脑电信号特征提取方法.实验结果表明:直接基于RQA特征的癫痫脑电的检测准确率较高,其中直接基于确定率DET的分类准确率可达到90.25%.本文还把提取的RQA特征值和变化系数、波动指数相结合组成特征向量,输入到SVM分类器,实现癫痫脑电信号的自动检测;实验结果表明:该方法的分类准确率可达到99%.     

基于非线性预测效果的癫痫脑电信号的特征提取方法

在非线性时间序列预测研究的基础上,提出了基于非线性预测效果的癫痫脑电信号特征提取方法,从脑电信号中自动检测出癫痫脑电信号.采用基于可预测性的选取嵌入维数的方法确定脑电信号序列的嵌入维数,进行相空间重构.实验结果表明:基于非线性预测效果的特征提取方法提取的特征能明显地区分癫痫脑电信号与正常脑电信号,该非线性特征提取方法适合小数据量的情况且对噪声的稳定性好.     

碳纳米管熔接金电极的分子动力学模拟

利用分子动力学模拟方法,研究了单壁碳纳米管与Au电极的高温熔接. 模拟结果表明,用端口吸附了Au团簇的碳纳米管在高温下能很好地与Au电极熔接. 首先将Au团簇放置于碳纳米管开口处进行高温退火,退火温度在1100 K左右,Au团簇部分Au原子进入碳纳米管管内,吸入碳纳米管中的Au原子形成壳层螺旋结构的Au纳米线,管外Au团簇呈无定形结构. 然后将吸附了Au团簇的碳纳米管与Au电极进行熔接,高温退火后,碳纳米管与Au电极表面之间形成了稳固的熔接,熔接最佳温度在800 K左右. 关键词： 碳纳米管 金电极 分子动力学模拟     

皮层脑电时间序列的相空间重构及非线性特征量的提取

对麻醉的SD大鼠在癫痫发作前后两种状态的皮层脑电(ECoG)的时间序列,用多种有效的方法和分析技术,使得大量的ECoG时间序列得以正确的分析,并得出重要的结论.首先利用延时坐标法重构吸引子;计算互信息函数,取互信息函数第一次达到最小值的延时为重构延时时间,提出将伪邻点法和Cao法相结合的方法确定最佳嵌入维数.然后采用非线性预报和替代数据法相结合的方法确定ECoG为混沌时间序列,从不同角度得出了ECoG不是低维混沌的结论.在ECoG相空间重构的基础上,计算了最大Lyapunov指数(LLE).应用了近似熵这一标量对ECoG进行刻画,计算结果表明:癫痫发作前的皮层脑电的最大Lyapunov指数和近似熵都明显地高于癫痫发作后的,这可能为理解癫痫发病机理,预报癫痫发作和治疗提供一定的思路. 关键词： 皮层脑电 互信息 伪邻点法 最大Lyapunov指数 近似熵     

Electronic Transport Properties of Diblock Co-Oligomer Molecule Devices Sandwiched between Nitrogen Doping Armchair Graphene Nanoribbon Electrodes

We investigate the eleetronic transport properties of dipyrimidinyl-diphenyl sandwiched between two armchair graphene nanoribbon electrodes using the nonequilibrium Green function formalism combined with a firstprinciples method based on density functional theory. Among the three models M1-M3, Ml is not doped with a heteroatom. In the left parts of M2 and M3, nitrogen atoms are doped at two edges of the nanoribbon. In the right parts, nitrogen atoms are doped at one center and at the edges of M2 and M3, respectively. Comparisons of M1, M2 and M3 show obvious rectifying characteristics, and the maximum rectification ratios are up to 42.9 in M2. The results show that the rectifying behavior is strongly dependent on the doping position of electrodes. A higher rectifhcation ratio can be found in the dipyrimidinyl-diphenyl molecular device with asymmetric doping of left and right electrodes, which suggests that this system has a broader application in future logic and memory devices.     

可扩展的用于量子信息处理的刻槽平面离子芯片设计

研究设计了一个有效的可扩展的二维刻槽离子芯片。为了减少激光在离子芯片表面的散射,使被囚禁离子更加稳定,并使激光容易控制和探测成行的被囚禁离子,在每两个平行的射频电极中间刻槽使冷却光和探测光路径可穿过芯片。把控制离子运动的直流电极跟射频电极分开,减轻了不同电压对被囚禁离子的干扰,改进了对离子的控制。用有限元分析的方法对芯片表面上方的电势分布做了计算模拟。模拟结果表明,在这种新型的刻槽可扩展芯片上可以生成一个可扩展的离子阱阵列。这种结构提供了一个新颖的刻槽二维平面离子芯片,被囚禁其上的线形离子阵列可用来进行大型的量子信息处理。