title: Evidence for self-organized criticality in human epileptic hippocampus.
abstract: Self-organized criticality (SOC) is a property of complex dynamic systems that evolve to a critical state, capable of producing scale-free energy fluctuations. A characteristic feature of dynamical systems exhibiting SOC is the power-law probability distributions that describe the dynamics of energy release. We show experimental evidence for SOC in the epileptic focus of seven patients with medication-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy. In the epileptic focus the probability density of pathological energy fluctuations and the time between these energy fluctuations scale as (energy) and (time), respectively. The power-laws characterizing the probability distributions from these patients are consistent with computer simulations of integrate-and-fire oscillator networks that have been reported recently. These findings provide insight into the neuronal dynamics of epileptic hippocampus and suggest a mechanism for interictal epileptiform fluctuations. The presence of SOC in human epileptic hippocampus may provide a method for identifying the network involved in seizure generation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA. worrell.gregory@mayo.edu
authors.forename: Gregory A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Worrell
authors.forename: Stephen D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Cranstoun
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Echauz
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Litt
mesh_terms: D004569:Electroencephalography; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics