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Updated: Oct 9, 2025

Network Analysis of Foramen Ovale Electrode Recordings in Drug-resistant Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Patients
Published on: December 18, 2016
Sevoflurane-based enhancement of phase-amplitude coupling and localization of the epileptogenic zone
Keiko Wada1, Masaki Sonoda2, Ethan Firestone3
1Department of Anesthesiology, National Center Hospital, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Kodaira, Tokyo 1878551, Japan; Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama 2360004, Japan.
Objective:
Phase-amplitude coupling between high-frequency (≥150 Hz) and delta (3-4 Hz) oscillations - modulation index (MI) - is a promising, objective biomarker of epileptogenicity. We determined whether sevoflurane anesthesia preferentially enhances this metric within the epileptogenic zone.
Methods:
This is an observational study of intraoperative electrocorticography data from 621 electrodes chronically implanted into eight patients with drug-resistant, focal epilepsy. All patients were anesthetized with sevoflurane during resective surgery, which subsequently resulted in seizure control. We classified 'removed' and 'retained' brain sites as epileptogenic and non-epileptogenic, respectively. Mixed model analysis determined which anesthetic stage optimized MI-based classification of epileptogenic sites.
Results:
MI increased as a function of anesthetic stage, ranging from baseline (i.e., oxygen alone) to 2.0 minimum alveolar concentration (MAC) of sevoflurane, preferentially at sites showing higher initial MI values. This phenomenon was accentuated just prior to sevoflurane reaching 2.0 MAC, at which time, the odds of a site being classified as epileptogenic were enhanced by 86.6 times for every increase of 1.0 MI.
Conclusions:
Intraoperative MI best localized the epileptogenic zone immediately before sevoflurane reaching 2.0 MAC in this small cohort of patients.
Significance:
Prospective, large cohort studies are warranted to determine whether sevoflurane anesthesia can reduce the need for extraoperative, invasive evaluation.
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