The intriguing question was whether specific spikes are good or bad for seizures. It has been documented that specific types of spikes and a certain spiking rate can actually mean smaller discharges that prevent the occurrence of the seizure. While other types of spikes have been recorded as coming more frequently and in longer time spans before a seizure actually occurs, like a buildup. And it was not clear why patients with the same diagnosis, for example, focal temporal epilepsy have different effects of these spikes...
The intriguing question was whether specific spikes are good or bad for seizures. It has been documented that specific types of spikes and a certain spiking rate can actually mean smaller discharges that prevent the occurrence of the seizure. While other types of spikes have been recorded as coming more frequently and in longer time spans before a seizure actually occurs, like a buildup. And it was not clear why patients with the same diagnosis, for example, focal temporal epilepsy have different effects of these spikes. And actually, it was really interesting to find that in a specific patient, there are multiple types of spikes, even when analyzing their distribution and their focus. We used the BESA software to do this analysis. And in the same patient, we actually found both types, some that occurred specifically before a seizure and others that occurred before a longer time span of the seizure.
So a specific spike could have a buildup in the first two hours before a seizure. And the specific spike would be actually the aftermath of another seizure. And this is actually really important to know, and we should distinguish between these types of spike. And I hope that more research in this domain will actually lead us to a better understanding and maybe classify in the patient whether those types of spikes are suggestive of a seizure coming up in this next days or hours, or it actually means that the patient is in a steady-state and no seizure will occur in the next time-span. This would actually have a great impact on planning your day and planning your activities as a patient. So, yes, this is just the beginning.