Stabilizing Fractional Dynamical Networks Suppresses Epileptic Seizures

Medically uncontrolled epileptic seizures affect nearly 15 million people worldwide, resulting in enormous economic and psychological burdens. Treatment of medically refractory epilepsy is essential for patients to achieve remission, improve psychological functioning, and enhance social and vocational outcomes. Here, we show a state-of-the-art method that stabilizes fractional dynamical networks modeled from intracranial EEG data, effectively suppressing seizure activity in 34 out of 35 total spontaneous episodes from patients at the University of Pennsylvania and the Mayo Clinic. We perform a multi-scale analysis and show that the fractal behavior and stability properties of these data distinguish between four epileptic states: interictal, pre-ictal, ictal, and post-ictal. Furthermore, the simulated controlled signals exhibit substantial amplitude reduction ($49\%$ average). These findings highlight the potential of fractional dynamics to characterize seizure-related brain states and demonstrate its capability to suppress epileptic activity.