Termination patterns of complex partial seizures: An intracranial EEG study
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 30, 2026
Performing Behavioral Tasks in Subjects with Intracranial Electrodes
Published on: October 2, 2014
Pegah Afra1, Christopher C Jouny2, Gregory K Bergey2
1Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States.
Purpose:
While seizure onset patterns have been the subject of many reports, there have been few studies of seizure termination. In this study we report the incidence of synchronous and asynchronous termination patterns of partial seizures recorded with intracranial arrays.
Methods:
Data were collected from patients with intractable complex partial seizures undergoing presurgical evaluations with intracranial electrodes. Patients with seizures originating from mesial temporal and neocortical regions were grouped into three groups based on patterns of seizure termination: synchronous only (So), asynchronous only (Ao), or mixed (S/A, with both synchronous and asynchronous termination patterns).
Results:
88% of the patients in the MT group had seizures with a synchronous pattern of termination exclusively (38%) or mixed (50%). 82% of the NC group had seizures with synchronous pattern of termination exclusively (52%) or mixed (30%). In the NC group, there was a significant difference of the range of seizure durations between So and Ao groups, with Ao exhibiting higher variability. Seizures with synchronous termination had low variability in both groups.
Conclusions:
Synchronous seizure termination is a common pattern for complex partials seizures of both mesial temporal or neocortical onset. This may reflect stereotyped network behavior or dynamics at the seizure focus.
