Use of Muse S Athena + Mind Monitor in epilepsy

[PaulVan]

Good afternoon.

My 4 year old daughter was recently diagnosed with generalized myoclonic epilepsy, which is expressed as seizures lasting 1 to 4 seconds in the brain with a frequency amplitude of 2.5 to 3 GHz and theta waves of 5 to 7 GHz. These seizures can be recorded with EEG sensors in the doctor's office.

I realize this is not medical equipment. But I have already ordered a Muse S Athena for this purpose and plan to use it in combination with the Mind Monitor to monitor seizures during the day.

Dear developer, will this solution be suitable for my tasks? Will I be able to collect data for 4 - 8 - 24 hours to count the number of seizures? Do I need to apply EEG gel to get cleaner data?

Thank you so much for your reply!

[James]

Yes and no.
Mind Monitor and a Muse can be used to record RAW EEG as in your above image.

However, you're going to have two main problems.

#1 - Noise - The Muse is essentially a voltage meter and as well as the tiny signals from the brain (EEG), it will also pick up the much larger muscle movement (EMG) signals. This isn't so much of a problem if you're sitting down and trying to meditate, but if you're a 4 year old running around, smiling, looking in different directions with your eyes, then you're going to get a ton of noise.. and it will look very similar to a seisure in terms of spikes in the data. Regarding EEG Gel, I don't think this will help much as it's just due to the fact that the sensors are right next to the eyes and eyebrows. I'm also not sure how easy it would be to clean the gel off the fabric of the Muse S line.

#2 - Fit - The Muse is designed to fit adults. I think on a 4 year old it might slide right off. You might be able to mitigate this with elastic bands, but any issues with fit will lead back to you getting more noise in the signal.

Lastly, I'd like to mention battery life. A brand new Athena will last about 8 hours, but over time this will decrease. The new Athena fNIRs sensor has a heavy hit on the battery. At it's max setting, the Athena will give you data for about 1 hour before being completely drained. With the sensor enabled on minimum, it will last about 8 hours. If you want to attempt overright recording, then I would strongly recommend getting the Android version of Mind Monitor. Currently the Apple version is set to use the max fNIRs data (1h battery!). I have an update to fix that, but it's stuck in Apple's app approval process right now. The Android version has it's update approved, so it defaults to min power (8h) and you can change it in settings if you want more data.

[PaulVan]

Thank you very much for your detailed reply.
For problem number 1, I think I can use it at night when the child is asleep. And this data should already give a lot of information about the dynamics of the disease.
Problem number 2. I looked in the description of the device on the official website that it is from 48 cm head circumference. My daughter's head circumference is 49 cm.
Still going to try to install the app on my android and my wife's iPhone.
I still have one more question regarding your comments. What does max and min mode mean? Are we talking about frequency or accuracy of data capture?

[James]

fNIRs is basically a bunch of lights and light detectors. More lights on means higher quality data, but also more battery drain. There are settings for 4, 8 or 16 sensors to be enabled. More sensors means more data accuracy.

fNIRs is for heart rate/ blood oxygen, so you likely don't need it at all for your application.

One thing I'd note about using the Muse over night is that REM sleep might look like a seisure. The electric signals that move the eyes will get picked up by the Muse and you will spikes in the signal when this happens. You can actually use this data to tell what direction a person looked in, as each direction has a unique spike. When you're in REM sleep, your eye movement will create a lot of noise in the RAW EEG and I think this might look very similar to a fit. I have not tested this however, so maybe it might look different, but it's something I wanted you to be aware of.

and lastly, after you have recorded your data, you can view it online here:
https://mind-monitor.com/Chart.php
I would recommend using a cloud service to transfer it your Mac/PC to use a big screen.
On the RAW EEG view you enable and disable each of the four sensors (TP9, AF7, AF9, TP10). You might find that during the night one or more of the sensors lost contact due to movement and is obstructing the view of the other data, so you can toggle it off to see the others.

[PaulVan]

Thank you very much for creating such a quality software product and separately for the level of technical support here on the forum. When the device will be delivered and in case of additional questions on the program operation, I will contact you.