[Electroencephalography in delirium superimposed on dementia]. / Het electroencefalogram bij delier bij dementie (DBD).

Recognizing delirium superimposed on pre-existing cognitive impairment or dementia, 'delirium superimposed on dementia' (DSD), is challenging because signs of delirium might be interpreted as symptoms of pre-existing cognitive dysfunction.In this paper, we review the literature on the role of electrencephalography (EEG) in the differential diagnosis of delirium, dementia and DSD.Conventional EEG, applying twenty to thirty electrodes, taking thirty minutes registration, is not feasible in psychogeriatric patients. Recent studies suggest that it is possible to reliably detect delirium using only a limited number of EEG electrodes for a short period of time.With this, use of EEG in the detection of delirium in patients with cognitive impairment or clinically manifest dementia could be possible.

Are high frequency oscillations associated with altered network topology in partial epilepsy?

Neurophysiological studies have reported functional network alterations in epilepsy, most consistently in the theta frequency band. Highly interconnected brain regions (so-called 'hubs') seem to be important in these epileptic networks. High frequency oscillations (HFOs) in intracranial EEG recordings are recently discovered biomarkers that can identify the epileptogenic area and are thought to result from altered neuronal interactions. We studied whether the epileptogenic zone (identified by HFOs and seizure onset zone) is associated with pathological hubs. Bilateral depth electrode recordings from the hippocampus and amygdala were available from twelve patients suspected of temporal lobe epilepsy. HFOs, classified as ripples (80-250 Hz) and fast ripples (250-500 Hz), and epileptiform spikes were marked for all patients in a five-minute epoch of slow-wave sleep. For each channel, we computed hub-measures from a period without epileptiform spikes and found that the epileptogenic zone was associated with a decreased hub-value in the theta frequency band. The amount of HFOs, especially fast ripples, was negatively correlated with the hub-value per channel. Results from post-hoc analyses of other frequency bands, particularly the broad- and gamma frequency band, pointed in the same direction as the results for the theta frequency band. These findings suggest a pathological functional 'isolation' of the epileptogenic zone in the interictal state.