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The Journal of Mathematical Neuroscience
Figure 1 | The Journal of Mathematical Neuroscience

Figure 1

From: A phenomenological model of seizure initiation suggests network structure may explain seizure frequency in idiopathic generalised epilepsy

Figure 1

Timescales in epilepsy and epileptic seizures. (a-c) Consider a single channel of EEG from a patient with absence epilepsy. (d, e) Schematics (not based on real data) to illustrate longer timescale phenomena. (a): Close-up of the absence seizure EEG during a SWD showing the spike-and-wave pattern characteristic of absence seizure EEG. (b): Full time course of the same SWD. The epileptiform EEG arises abruptly from the background EEG, oscillates for around 5 s (in this case) and terminates abruptly. (c): Period of high SWD activity in a person with absence epilepsy whilst awake. SWD recur almost periodically at around once per minute during this epoch. (d): Schematic histogram of SWD counts during 15-minute epochs over a 24 h period. SWD occur steadily throughout waking states and arise in greater number periodically during sleep cycles. (e): Schematic histogram of SWD rates over a 20 y period, representing the course of epilepsy within the life of an epileptic person. Absence epilepsy is most likely to start at around age 7. In most cases, after a few years the seizures will have stopped.

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