Epileptic seizures: Quakes of the brain?

Ivan Osorio, Mark G. Frei, Didier Sornette, John Milton, and Ying-Cheng Lai
Phys. Rev. E 82, 021919 – Published 20 August 2010

Abstract

A dynamical analogy supported by five scale-free statistics (the Gutenberg-Richter distribution of event sizes, the distribution of interevent intervals, the Omori and inverse Omori laws, and the conditional waiting time until the next event) is shown to exist between two classes of seizures (“focal” in humans and generalized in animals) and earthquakes. Increments in excitatory interneuronal coupling in animals expose the system’s dependence on this parameter and its dynamical transmutability: moderate increases lead to power-law behavior of seizure energy and interevent times, while marked ones to scale-free (power-law) coextensive with characteristic scales and events. The coextensivity of power law and characteristic size regimes is predicted by models of coupled heterogeneous threshold oscillators of relaxation and underscores the role of coupling strength in shaping the dynamics of these systems.

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  • Received 20 September 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.82.021919

©2010 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Ivan Osorio1,2,*, Mark G. Frei2,†, Didier Sornette3,‡, John Milton4,§, and Ying-Cheng Lai5,∥

  • 1Department of Neurology, The University of Kansas Medical Center, 3599 Rainbow Boulevard, Mailstop 2012, Kansas City, Kansas 66160, USA
  • 2Flint Hills Scientific, 5040 Bob Billings Parkway, Suite A, Lawrence, Kansas 66049, USA
  • 3D-MTEC, D-PHYS and D-ERDW, ETH Zurich, Kreuzplatz 5, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland
  • 4W.M. Keck Science Center, The Claremont Colleges, 925 North Mills Avenue, Claremont, California 91711, USA
  • 5School of Electrical Computer and Energy Engineering, Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-5706, USA

  • *iosorio@kumc.edu
  • frei@fhs.lawrence.ks.us
  • dsornette@ethz.ch
  • §jmilton@jsd.claremont.edu
  • ying-cheng.lai@asu.edu

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Issue

Vol. 82, Iss. 2 — August 2010

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