Enhanced gamma band mutual information is associated with impaired consciousness during temporal lobe seizures

Background: Epileptic seizures are characterized by aberrant synchronization. We hypothesized that higher synchronization across the seizure onset zone (SOZ) channels during a temporal lobe seizure contributes to impaired consciousness. New method: All symmetric bivariate synchronization measures were extended to multivariate measure by a principal component analysis (PCA) based technique. A novel nonparametric method has been proposed to test the statistical significance between increased synchronization across the seizure onset zone (SOZ) channels and reduced consciousness. Results: Increased synchronization in the gamma band towards seizure termination significantly contributes to impaired consciousness (p < 0.1). Synchronization reaches its peak in the extratemporal region (frontal lobe) ahead of the temporal region (p < 0.05). Synchronization is prominent in beta and gamma bands by most methods and it is more in the second half of seizure duration than in the first (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Mutual information is the only synchronization measure out of the six that we studied, whose increase can be associated with the loss of consciousness in a statistically significant way.