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Chapter 17
Dynamical Analysis of the EEG and Treatment
of Human Status Epilepticus by Antiepileptic
Drugs
Aaron Faith, Shivkumar Sabesan, Norman Wang, David Treiman, Joseph Sirven,
Konstantinos Tsakalis, and Leon Iasemidis
Abstract
An estimated 42,000 epileptic patients die from status epilepticus (SE)
every year in the United States alone. Evaluation of antiepileptic drugs and pro-
tocols for SE treatment, in terms of the dynamics of concurrently monitored elec-
troencephalogram (EEG), may lead to the design of new, more effective treatment
paradigms for successfully controlling SE. Such monitoring techniques may have
a profound effect in the treatment of SE in the emergency department (ED) and
intensive care unit (ICU), where antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) are given in rapid suc-
cession in the hope of patient recovery, or even in the epilepsy monitoring unit
(EMU), where occasionally a patient may progress to SE. In the past, using tech-
niques from nonlinear dynamics and synchronization theory, we have shown that
successful treatment with AEDs results in dynamical disentrainment (desynchro-
