Newborn EEG seizure detection based on interspike space distribution in the time-frequency domain

This paper presents a new time-frequency based EEG seizure detection method. This method uses the distribution of interspike intervals as a criterion for discriminating between seizure and nonseizure activities. To detect spikes in the EEG, the signal is mapped into the time-frequency domain. The high instantaneous energy of spikes is reflected as a localized energy in time-frequency domain. Histogram of successive spikes intervals is then used as a feature for seizure detection. In the presented technique the EEG data are segmented into 4-second epochs. A k-nearest neighbor algorithm is employed to classify the EEG epochs into seizure and nonseizure groups. The performance of the presented technique is evaluated using the EEG data of five neonates. The results indicate that the proposed technique is superior to the other existing methods with 92.4 % good detection rate and 4.9 % false detection rate.