Analysis of Brain-Heart Interactions in newborns with and without seizures using the Convergent Cross Mapping approach

In the last years, the characterization of brain-heart interactions (BHIs) in epilepsy has gained great interest. For some specific seizures there is still a lack of information about the mechanisms occurring during or close to ictal events between the central nervous system (CNS) and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). This is the case for neonatal seizures, one of the most common neurological emergencies in the first days of life. This paper evaluates possible differences in BHIs between newborns with seizures and seizure-free ones. We applied convergent cross mapping approaches to a cohort of 52 newborns from a public dataset. Preliminary results show that newborns with seizures have a lower degree of interaction between the CNS and the ANS than seizure-free ones (Mann-Whitney test: p-value <0.05). These results are of clinical relevance for future BHI-based approaches to better understand the neural mechanisms behind neonatal seizures. Clinical Relevance- The study of BHIs in newborns with seizures might be helpful to better characterize the disorder or the aetiologies behind ictal events. Moreover, BHI approaches may confirm the involvement of the ANS during or close to a neonatal seizure event.