Determination of the Functional Hierarchy in Multifocal Epilepsy

Abstract

Our previous research on interictal electrographic epileptic potentials of human scalp recordings, carried out using a simultaneous multichannel averaging technique (Rosadini et al. 1974), showed that: 1. different morphological spike models can be present in various structures as well as within a given structure in every single patient; the distribution pattern of their frequency components can be exactly defined by Fourier analysis in order to characterize objectively the identified models (Cavazza et al. 1974). 2. The presence of different morphological models could be related to the functional conditions of the subjects, such as wakefulness and various sleep stages (Cavazza et al. 1973). 3. The improvement of the signal to noise ratio allowed the detection of spikes which were not evident at a conventional inspective analysis of the EEG because masked by background activity (Siccardi et al. 1973).