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Updated: Aug 17, 2026
Surgical Implantation of Chronic Neural Electrodes for Recording Single Unit Activity and Electrocorticographic Signals
Published on: February 24, 2012
Locating chronically implanted subdural electrodes using surface reconstruction
John D Hunter1, Diana M Hanan, Bryan F Singer
1Department of Pediatrics, The University of Chicago, 5841 South Maryland Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. jdhunter@nitace.bsd.uchicago.edu
Objective:
To determine the accuracy of locating subdural electrodes by means of 3-D surface rendering of CT scans.
Methods:
Open source software has been developed and posted on the web which segments the electrodes into 3-D surfaces and allows their 3-D locations to be exported to other EEG analysis programs. The accuracy of the technique was determined by studying 410 subdural electrodes implanted in four epilepsy patients. Accuracy was determined by comparing the locations from the rendering analysis to the locations of the same electrodes determined by conventional analysis of their appearance on individual CT slices.
Results:
The average accuracy of a study of 410 electrodes imaged in four patients repeated two times by three observers was 0.91 (+/- 0.41) mm, with a maximum error of 3.3 mm, about half of the diameter of an electrode.
Conclusions:
The location of subdural electrodes can easily and quickly be determined within high-resolution CT scans through the use of 3-D rendering.
Significance:
This relatively fast and easy method for determining the location of subdural electrodes should facilitate their use in both clinical and research investigations.
