A dataset of neonatal EEG recordings with seizures annotations

Abstract

Neonatal seizures are a common emergency in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). There are many questions yet to be answered regarding the temporal/spatial characteristics of seizures from different pathologies, response to medication, effects on neurodevelopment and optimal detection. This dataset contains EEG recordings from human neonates and the visual interpretation of the EEG by the human expert. Multi-channel EEG was recorded from 79 term neonates admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the Helsinki University Hospital. The median recording duration was 74 minutes (IQR: 64 to 96 minutes). EEGs were annotated by three experts for the presence of seizures. An average of 460 seizures were annotated per expert in the dataset, 39 neonates had seizures by consensus and 22 were seizure free by consensus. The dataset can be used as a reference set of neonatal seizures, for the development of automated methods of seizure detection and other EEG analysis, as well as for the analysis of inter-observer agreement.</p