Quantitative evaluation of electrographic response to electroconvulsive therapy in super-refractory status...

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been occasionally applied as a treatment for super-refractory status epilepticus (SRSE). However, the effects of ECT on electrographic activity and related clinical outcomes are largely unknown. Here, we use quantitative approaches on electroencephalography (EEG) data to evaluate the neurophysiological influences of ECT and how they may relate to patient survival.

This was a single center study of adult patients who underwent bi-frontal ECT for treatment of SRSE between 2007 and 2021. Continuous scalp EEG data obtained before and after each ECT session was converted using a linelength transform and projected into low-dimensional space using complementary linear and non-linear dimensionality reduction techniques (principal component analysis and separately uniform manifold approximation). Differences between before versus after ECT were quantified using silhouette scores. Mixed effects models evaluated whether changes in mean scores were related to time (across sessions, and separately within sessions up to 1 h after treatment) and patient outcomes (survival).

Eight patients underwent ECT for SRSE, ranging from 3 to 12 sessions each. Four patients survived with chronic epilepsy and varying cognitive sequelae, and four died while hospitalized. Projecting EEG data into low-dimensional space revealed several sessions with visualizable differences in electrographic activity before versus after ECT treatment. Silhouette scores significantly increased as time elapsed up to 60 min after ECT and higher scores were related to survival, though there was no significant change in scores across successive ECT sessions.

ECT is associated with changes in electrographic activity in certain patients, and such changes may be associated with survival, although our study was underpowered to detect more definitive treatment-related effects. Further quantitative neurophysiology studies, and potentially clinical trials, in larger groups of patients are warranted to study direct influences of ECT treatment given the devastating and often deadly outcomes of SRSE.