Burst-Suppression Ratio on Electrocorticography Depends on Interelectrode Distance.

INTRODUCTION: With deepening of anesthesia-induced comatose states, the EEG becomes fragmented by increasing periods of suppression. When measured from conventional EEG recordings, the binary burst-suppression signal (BS) appears similar across the scalp. As such, the BS ratio (BSR), quantifying the fraction of time spent in suppression, is clinically considered a global index of brain function in sedation monitoring. Recent studies indicate that BS may be considerably asynchronous when measured with higher spatial resolution such as on electrocorticography. The authors investigated the magnitude of BSR changes with cortical recording interelectrode distance. METHODS: The authors selected fronto-parietal electrocorticography recordings showing propofol-induced BS recorded via 8-electrode strips (1-cm interelectrode distance) during cortical motor mapping in 31 patients. For 1-minute epochs, bipolar recordings were computed between each electrode pair. The median BSR, burst duration (BD), and bursting frequency were derived for each interelectrode distance. RESULTS: At 1-cm interelectrode distance, with increasing BSR, BD decreased exponentially. For a BSR between 50% and 80%, BD reached a plateau of 2.1 seconds while the bursting frequency decreased from 14 to 6 bursts per minute. With increasing interelectrode distance, BD increased at a rate of 0.2 seconds per cm. This correlated with a decrease in BSR with distance that reached the rate of -4.4 percentage per centimeters during deepest anesthesia. CONCLUSIONS: With increasing cortical interelectrode recording distance, burst summation leads to an increasing BD associated with a reduction in BSR. Standardization of interelectrode distance is important for cortical BSR measurements.

The human burst suppression electroencephalogram of deep hypothermia.

OBJECTIVE: Deep hypothermia induces 'burst suppression' (BS), an electroencephalogram pattern with low-voltage 'suppressions' alternating with high-voltage 'bursts'. Current understanding of BS comes mainly from anesthesia studies, while hypothermia-induced BS has received little study. We set out to investigate the electroencephalogram changes induced by cooling the human brain through increasing depths of BS through isoelectricity. METHODS: We recorded scalp electroencephalograms from eleven patients undergoing deep hypothermia during cardiac surgery with complete circulatory arrest, and analyzed these using methods of spectral analysis. RESULTS: Within patients, the depth of BS systematically depends on the depth of hypothermia, though responses vary between patients except at temperature extremes. With decreasing temperature, burst lengths increase, and burst amplitudes and lengths decrease, while the spectral content of bursts remains constant. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support an existing theoretical model in which the common mechanism of burst suppression across diverse etiologies is the cyclical diffuse depletion of metabolic resources, and suggest the new hypothesis of local micro-network dropout to explain decreasing burst amplitudes at lower temperatures. SIGNIFICANCE: These results pave the way for accurate noninvasive tracking of brain metabolic state during surgical procedures under deep hypothermia, and suggest new testable predictions about the network mechanisms underlying burst suppression.

Intraoperative somatosensory evoked potential monitoring decreases EEG burst suppression ratio during deep general anesthesia.

PURPOSE: The burst suppression (BS) EEG patterns induced by general anesthesia can react to somatosensory stimuli. We investigated this reactivity by studying the effect of peripheral nerve stimulation used for routine intraoperative spinal cord monitoring by somatosensory evoked potentials on BS patterns. METHODS: The relative time spent in suppression expressed as BS ratio (BSR) and mean burst duration were measured before (BSR(Pre)), during (BSR(Stim)), and after (BSR(Post)) a 60-second repetitive electrical ulnar nerve stimulation in nine patients under total intravenous general anesthesia with propofol. The BS reactivity was measured as BSR(Pre)-BSR(Stim). RESULTS: Overall, 27 trials were included with BSR(Pre) up to 77%, indistinguishable from BSR(Post). During stimulation, the mean BSR transiently decreased from 42% to 35%. For each 1% increase in BSR(Pre), the BS reactivity increased with 0.6%, whereas the burst duration remained approximately 3 seconds. For BSR(Pre) below 30%, the BS reactivity was negligible. CONCLUSIONS: Data from this study show that somatosensory input can evoke bursts, altering the "spontaneous" deep BS patterns (BSR(Pre) >30%). Further studies are necessary to objectively assess the clinical relevance of stimulus-induced BS reactivity during deep general anesthesia.

Dorsal column mapping via phase reversal method: the refined technique and clinical applications.

BACKGROUND: Safe resection of intramedullary spinal cord tumors can be challenging, because they often alter the cord anatomy. Identification of neurophysiologically viable dorsal columns (DCs) and of neurophysiologically inert tissue, eg, median raphe (MR), as a safe incision site is crucial for avoiding postoperative neurological deficits. We present our experience with and improvements made to our previously described technique of DC mapping, successfully applied in a series of 12 cases. OBJECTIVE: To describe a new, safe, and reliable technique for intraoperative DC mapping. METHODS: The right and left DCs were stimulated by using a bipolar electric stimulator and the triggered somatosensory evoked potentials recorded from the scalp. Phase reversal and amplitude changes of somatosensory evoked potentials were used to neurophysiologically identify the laterality of DCs, the inert MR, as well as other safe incision sites. RESULTS: The MR location was neurophysiologically confirmed in all patients in whom this structure was first visually identified as well as in those in whom it was not, with 1 exception. DCs were identified in all patients, regardless of whether they could be visually identified. In 3 cases, negative mapping with the use of this method enabled the surgeon to reliably identify additional inert tissue for incision. None of the patients had postoperative worsening of the DC function. CONCLUSION: Our revised technique is safe and reliable, and it can be easily incorporated into routine intramedullary spinal cord tumor resection. It provides crucial information to the neurosurgeon to prevent postoperative neurological deficits.

Characteristics of falls in the epilepsy monitoring unit: a retrospective study.

Falls are an important adverse event in an epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU). We identified patterns of falls in an EMU and compared them with risk factors for inpatient falls. Twenty-six patients with 26 falls (2.3% of admissions) in the EMU were compared with 50 general neurology inpatients with 56 falls over a 4-year period. In the EMU, the majority (62%) of falls happened during the first 3 days of admission, mostly in the bathroom (74%), in patients with a normal mental status (77%). Most general inpatients fell after the third day (64%), inside their rooms (68%), and had an altered mental status before the fall (68%). All 26 EMU patients were identified as high risk at admission, in spite of which falls were not prevented. We outline these differences between EMU patients and general inpatients and highlight the practice gap in preventing falls in an EMU.