Duration adjusted tests did not confirm coupling between ictal heart rate rise and postictal SEEG suppression

We joined archived per-seizure heart-rate beats with archived postictal SEEG power features for 53 seizures in 30 HUP patients from OpenNeuro ds004100. The analysis plan was hashed before the join. Heart-rate rise was median heart rate 30–60 s after clinician-marked onset minus median heart rate from −120 to −60 s. Suppression was the mean log10 ratio of bipolar 30–55 Hz power at offset+2 to +20 s to power at onset−30 to −5 s. Between patients, the partial Spearman association with log duration as covariate was −0.39 (95% CI −0.66 to +0.03, p=0.034, Holm p=0.068). Without the covariate, rho was −0.49 (p=0.0075). Within patients (second minus first seizure, 23 patients), rho was −0.18 (p=0.42). Delta power had no relation. The preregistered coupling was not confirmed. Patients with a larger heart-rate rise tended to have stronger suppression, partly through seizure duration. There was no evidence that the measures changed together from seizure to seizure in one patient. A moderate coupling is not excluded. Seizure type was unavailable.

SEEG · heart rate · postictal suppression · epilepsy · heart-rate variability · preregistration · partial Spearman correlation · HUP dataset