A new approach to detect non-convulsive seizures (NCSs) in patients in a cardiac surgery intensive care unit by monitoring heart rate variability (HRV)

Abstract We present four post-operative cardiac surgery patients with generalized non-convulsive seizures (NCS) monitored with Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Electroencephalogram (EEG). For every patient who experienced a NCS, bedside bipolar electroencephalography (EEG) was performed from bilateral frontal-central channels (F3–C3′/F4–C4′) using the international 10–20 system. The four HRV pattern was also highlighted, composed of the same peak in the Very Low Frequency (VLF) and High Frequency (HF) domains. . The VLF peak and HF peak demonstrated activation within the same range (0.003 ± 0 and 0.295 ± 0.056 Hz, respectively). Further studies with a greater number of patients are needed to valide our hypothesis. The strong interaction between the ANS and the heart rhythm is well documented in these cases, and may be considered in the future to integrate neurological monitoring with a multimodal approach, such as HRV-EEG.