Spikes, Spikes, Spikes: Advancing Ambulatory Epilepsy Assessment & Monitoring with NaoX ear-EEG

When it comes to diagnosing epilepsy, clinicians usually seek for Interictal Epileptiform Discharges (IEDs) on EEGs, those small electrical "spikes" that appear between seizures. While seizure detection is a frequent focus of wearable EEG devices, capturing these crucial IEDs is a highly valuable indicator, helping clinicians establish a diagnosis, in addition to the clinical background. Moreover this is the promise of epilepsy monitoring, which is currently impossible due to the bottleneck of EEG access.

This is precisely what our latest research, presented by Dr. Jan Pyrzowski at the Mobile Health and Digital Technology in Epilepsy (MHDTE) conference in Copenhagen, has demonstrated. Our study, soon to be detailed in an upcoming publication, shows that our NaoX ear-EEG technology can reliably detect these IEDs.

The data is compelling:

• Out of 4,454 IEDs analyzed, our in-ear device reliably detected individual IEDs, showing a strong correlation with traditional scalp EEG in most patients.

• Crucially, the qualitative features of the IEDs, such as their shape and signal-to-noise ratio, were preserved in the in-ear signals. This means that the visual cues/patterns clinicians rely on for diagnosis are maintained, making our device a powerful tool for visual detection.

This study confirms that the NaoX ear-EEG, with its convenience, portability, and ability to perform extended, at-home recordings, is a valuable new tool for ambulatory epilepsy assessment and monitoring.

What's Next?

These thousands of IEDs, along with tens of thousands more we'll collect from ongoing clinical evaluations, will be used to train powerful AI algorithms. This will help us build a tool that will assist clinicians in the future, making epilepsy diagnosis faster and more accessible. And then step-in the seizure forecasting exciting field.

So, we ask you: in your clinical practice, which is more helpful, and at which step, the seizure or the spikes? 

What would you like NaoX to capture on ambulatory EEG?