Information of Epileptic Mechanism and its Systemic Change-points in a Zebrafish's Brain-wide Calcium Imaging Video Data

TL;DR

This study analyzes brain-wide calcium imaging data from Zebrafish to identify dynamic patterns and systemic change-points that serve as early warning signals for epileptic events, revealing underlying mechanisms.

Contribution

It introduces a data-driven method to detect systemic change-points in calcium imaging data, uncovering universal dynamic patterns associated with epileptic mechanisms.

Findings

Identified a universal oscillation-to-increase pattern in pixel percentile processes.

Developed graphical displays to visualize functional changes over inter-ictal periods.

Proposed a systemic change-point as an early warning signal for epileptic events.

Abstract

The epileptic mechanism is postulated as that an animal's neurons gradually diminish their inhibition function coupled with enhanced excitation when an epileptic event is approaching. Calcium imaging technique is designed to directly record brain-wide neurons activity in order to discover the underlying epileptic mechanism. In this paper, using one brain-wide calcium imaging video of Zebrafish, we compute dynamic pattern information of the epileptic mechanism, and devise three graphical displays to show the visible functional aspect of epileptic mechanism over five inter-ictal periods. The foundation of our data-driven computations for such dynamic patterns relies on one universal phenomenon discovered across 696 informative pixels. This universality is that each pixel's progressive 5-percentile process oscillates in an irregular fashion at first, but, after the middle point of inter-ictal period, the oscillation is replaced by a steady increasing trend. Such dynamic patterns are collectively transformed into a visible systemic change-point as an early warning signal (EWS) of an incoming epileptic event. We conclude through the graphic displays that pattern information extracted from the calcium imaging video realistically reveals the Zebrafish's authentic epileptic mechanism.