Early detection of periodic sharp wave complexes on EEG by independent component analysis in patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Po Shan Wang, Yu Te Wu, Chih I. Hung, Shan Yeong Kwan, Shin Teng, Bing Wen Soong*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

31 Scopus citations

Abstract

Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) is the most common human prion disease. EEG is the method of choice to support the diagnosis of a human prion disease. Periodic sharp wave complexes (PSWCs) on the EEG usually indicate a progressive stage of CJD. However, PSWCs only become obvious at around 8 to 12 weeks after the onset of clinical symptoms, and in a few cases, even later. Independent component analysis (ICA) is a new technique to separate statistically independent components from a mixture of data. This study recruited seven patients who fit the criteria of CJD between 2002 and 2005 and 10 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) as control subjects. Using an ICA algorithm, we were able to split typical PSWCs into several independent temporal components in conjunction with spatial maps. The PSWCs were not observed in the initial EEG studies of patients with either AD or CJD. However, the ICA algorithm was able to extract periodic discharges and epileptiform discharges from raw EEG of patients with CJD at as early as 3 to 5 weeks after disease onset. Such discharges otherwise could hardly be discerned by visual inspection. In conclusion, ICA may increase the sensitivity of EEG and facilitate the early diagnosis of CJD.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)25-31
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Clinical Neurophysiology
Volume25
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2008

Keywords

  • Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
  • Electroencephalography
  • Independent component analysis
  • Periodic sharp wave complexes
  • Prion disease

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