Prediction of antiepileptic drug treatment outcomes using machine learning
Sinisa Colic, Robert G. Wither, Min Lang, Liang Zhang, James H. Eubanks, Berj L. Bardakjian · Journal of Neural Engineering · 2016
Abstract Objective . Antiepileptic drug (AED) treatments produce inconsistent outcomes, often necessitating patients to go through several drug trials until a successful treatment can be found. This study proposes the use of machine learning techniques to predict epilepsy treatment outcomes of commonly used AEDs. Approach . Machine learning algorithms were trained and evaluated using features obtained from intracranial electroencephalogram (iEEG) recordings of the epileptiform discharges observed in Mecp2-deficient mouse model of the Rett Syndrome. Previous work have linked the presence of cross-frequency coupling ( I CFC ) of the delta (2–5 Hz) rhythm with the fast ripple (400–600 Hz) rhythm in epileptiform discharges. Using the I CFC to label post-treatment outcomes we compared support vector machines (SVMs) and random forest (RF) machine learning classifiers for providing likelihood scores of successful treatment outcomes. Main results . (a) There was heterogeneity in AED treatment outcomes, (b) machine learning techniques could be used to rank the efficacy of AEDs by estimating likelihood scores for successful treatment outcome, (c) I CFC features yielded the most effective a priori identification of appropriate AED treatment, and (d) both classifiers performed comparably. Significance . Machine learning approaches yielded predictions of successful drug treatment outcomes which in turn could reduce the burdens of drug trials and lead to substantial improvements in patient quality of life.