Before revision: A large variety of methods has been proposed for automatic seizure detection in EEG signals. Those achieving maximal performance are based on machine-learning techniques, which require long training sessions with large labelled databases, and produce a verdict with no intuitive justification. As an alternative, we here explore an unsupervised algorithm applicable to intra-cranial EEG recordings that requires good sampling of the non-ictal periods , but imposes no demands on the amount of data during ictal activity.
After revision: The amount of power in different frequency bands of the electroencephalogram (EEG) carries information about the behavioral state of a subject. Hence, neurologists treating epileptic patients monitor the temporal evolution of the different bands. We propose a covariance-based method to detect and characterize epileptic seizures operating on the band-filtered EEG signal. The algorithm is unsupervised, and performs a principal component analysis of intra-cranial EEG recordings that requires good sampling of the non-ictal periods , but imposes no demands on the amount of data during ictal activity.