James D Frost

PURPOSE: The main objective of this research is the development of automated video processing and analysis procedures aimed at the recognition and characterization of the types of neonatal seizures. The long-term goal of this research is the integration of these computational procedures into the development of a stand-alone automated system that could be used as a supplement in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to provide 24-h per day noninvasive monitoring of infants at risk for ...

PURPOSE: Infantile spasms is one of the most severe epileptic syndromes of infancy and early childhood. Progress toward understanding the pathophysiology of this disorder and the development of effective therapies has been hindered by the lack of a relevant animal model. We report here the creation of such a model.

METHODS: The sodium channel blocker, tetrodotoxin (TTX), was chronically infused into the developing neocortex or hippocampus of infant rats by way of an osmotic minipump ...

Twenty-four patients with infantile spasms were entered in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study to compare the therapeutic effectiveness of ACTH (20 to 30 units/day) with that of prednisone (2 mg/kg/day). Response to therapy was determined by utilizing a comprehensive monitoring system and was defined as a complete cessation of spasms and disappearance of the hypsarrhythmic EEG pattern. A major difference between the effectiveness of ACTH and that of prednisone in stopping ...

Infantile spasms syndrome (ISS) is a catastrophic pediatric epilepsy with motor spasms, persistent seizures, mental retardation, and in some cases, autism. One of its monogenic causes is an insertion mutation [c.304ins (GCG)(7)] on the X chromosome, expanding the first polyalanine tract of the interneuron-specific transcription factor Aristaless-related homeobox (ARX) from 16 to 23 alanine codons. Null mutation of the Arx gene impairs GABA and cholinergic interneuronal migration but ...

Sleep organization of infants may be influenced by differences in nutrient intakes from human milk and formula. Because sleep/awake and sleep stage patterns affect energy expenditure, we hypothesized that differences in sleep organization between breast-fed and formula-fed infants might account in part for differences in energy expenditure between feeding groups. Sleep stages and cycling of 4-mo-old breast-fed (n = 10) formula-fed (n = 10) infants were studied with simultaneous ...

This paper presents two methods developed to extract quantitative information from video recordings of neonatal seizures in the form of temporal motion strength and motor activity signals. Motion strength signals are extracted by measuring the area of the body parts that move during the seizure and the relative speed of motion using a combination of spatiotemporal subband decomposition of video, nonlinear filtering, and segmentation. Motor activity signals are extracted by tracking ...

A new experimental model of developmental epilepsy is reported. Behavioral and EEG features of seizures produced by unilateral intrahippocampal injection of tetanus toxin in postnatal day 9-11 rats, are described. Within 24-72 h of tetanus toxin injection, rat pups developed frequent and often prolonged seizures which included combinations of repetitive wet dog shakes, and wild running-jumping seizures. Intrahippocampal and cortical surface EEG recordings showed that coincident with ...

Infantile spasms constitute a relatively rare disorder of infancy and early childhood; their onset is usually within the first 6 to 8 months of life. A large percentage of patients with this disorder (85-90 per cent) show various degrees of retardation. Infantile spasms typically occur in clusters immediately on arousal, or soon thereafter, but rarely occur while the infant is actually asleep. The usual interictal EEG pattern associated with infantile spasms is hypsarrhythmia, but ...

Abnormal high frequency oscillations (HFOs) in EEG recordings are thought to be reflections of mechanisms responsible for focal seizure generation in the temporal lobe and neocortex. HFOs have also been recorded in patients and animal models of infantile spasms. If HFOs are important contributors to infantile spasms then anticonvulsant drugs that suppress these seizures should decrease the occurrence of HFOs. In experiments reported here, we used long-term video/EEG recordings with ...

This paper presents an automated procedure developed to extract quantitative information from video recordings of neonatal seizures in the form of motor activity signals. This procedure relies on optical flow computation to select anatomical sites located on the infants' body parts. Motor activity signals are extracted by tracking selected anatomical sites during the seizure using adaptive block matching. A block of pixels is tracked throughout a sequence of frames by searching for the ...

We report the long-term outcome of 64 infants with infantile spasms, followed prospectively, using controlled treatment schedules and objective techniques (24-hour EEG and video monitoring) to determine response. Average age at follow-up was 50 months. Of the 64 infants, three (5%) died; of the others, 41 (67%) had developmental retardation of 50% or more or an IQ of 50 or less. Eight patients (13%) composed our cryptogenic study group and were so classified on the basis of normal CT ...

OBJECTIVE: This study was aimed at the development of a seizure detection system by training neural networks using quantitative motion information extracted by motion segmentation methods from short video recordings of infants monitored for seizures.

METHODS: The motion of the infants' body parts was quantified by temporal motion strength signals extracted from video recordings by motion segmentation methods based on optical flow computation. The area of each frame occupied by the ...

An electronic averaging technique was used to detect consistent correlations between single unit discharges and EEG configuration in an isolated cortex preparation. These relationships were usually not evident by visual inspection of unprocessed data. Although each spontaneously active single unit was associated with a different averaged EEG wave form, the point of single unit discharge in almost all cases occurred during an initial positive phase and was followed by a rapid negative ...

Epileptic seizures are reported to occur frequently in Rett syndrome (RS). We evaluated the hypothesis that many events classified as seizures in RS represent other paroxysmal, non-epileptic events; thus, the overall incidence of seizures in RS is overestimated. We conducted video/polygraphic/EEG monitoring sessions (8-120 h duration) in 82 RS females (ages 2-30 years). Fifty-five patients (67%) had a history of seizures and 43 (52%) were receiving anticonvulsants. All had abnormal EEGs. ...