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Heart and respiration rate changes in the neonate during electroencephalographic seizure

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Abstract

An investigation of changes in the neonatal electrocardiogram (ECG) and respiration signals from labelled seizure data for five neonatal patient records is reported. A decrease during seizure of 5.70% in the mean RR-interval was found. The mean respiration rate per epoch was found to decrease by a mean 18.44% during seizure. No significant change in the RR-interval standard deviation or in the mean respiration amplitude during seizure was observed. These results raise the possibility of using ECG and respiration based methods instead of existing electrcoenceplogram (EEG) based methods, or in concert with EEG-based neonatal seizure detection methods to improve on previously reported seizure detection methods.

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Acknowledgements

This project was funded by SIMILAR Network of Excellence—Research in Human-Machine Multimodal Interfaces, European Commission, FP6-507609. GB was funded by an interdisciplinary grant from the Health Research Board of Ireland. The authors would like to acknowledge the helpful software advice of Dr. Niall Fox, Mr. Brian O’Mullane and Dr. Redmond Shouldice. We would also like to acknowledge the help and support of the nursing staff of the Unified Maternity Services, Cork, and the parents and families of the babies involved in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical, Electronic & Mechanical Engineering, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Barry R. Greene, Philip de Chazal, Richard B. Reilly & Ciara O’Brien

  2. Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Geraldine Boylan

  3. Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory, St Vincent’s Hospital, Fairview, Dublin, Ireland

    Richard B. Reilly

  4. Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, St. Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin, Ireland

    Sean Connolly

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  1. Barry R. Greene
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  2. Philip de Chazal
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  3. Geraldine Boylan
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  4. Richard B. Reilly
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  5. Ciara O’Brien
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  6. Sean Connolly
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Correspondence to Barry R. Greene.

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Greene, B.R., de Chazal, P., Boylan, G. et al. Heart and respiration rate changes in the neonate during electroencephalographic seizure. Med Bio Eng Comput 44, 27–34 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-005-0001-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-005-0001-5

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