SpikeGUI: Software for rapid interictal discharge annotation via template matching and online machine learning

Detection of interictal discharges is a key element of interpreting EEGs during the diagnosis and management of epilepsy. Because interpretation of clinical EEG data is time-intensive and reliant on experts who are in short supply, there is a great need for automated spike detectors. However, attempts to develop general-purpose spike detectors have so far been severely limited by a lack of expert-annotated data. Huge databases of interictal discharges are therefore in great demand for the development of general-purpose detectors. Detailed manual annotation of interictal discharges is time consuming, which severely limits the willingness of experts to participate. To address such problems, a graphical user interface “SpikeGUI” was developed in our work for the purposes of EEG viewing and rapid interictal discharge annotation. “SpikeGUI” substantially speeds up the task of annotating interictal discharges using a custom-built algorithm based on a combination of template matching and online machine learning techniques. While the algorithm is currently tailored to annotation of interictal epileptiform discharges, it can easily be generalized to other waveforms and signal types.