Suppressive Efficacies by Adaptive Temporal Filtering System on Photoparoxysmal Response Elicited by Flickering Pattern Stimulation

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Abstract
Summary:  Purpose: Based on our previous study that validated efficacies of an adaptive temporal filtering system (ATFS) suppressing a photoparoxysmal response (PPR) elicited by a chromatic flicker stimulation, we further studied ATFS efficacies on PPRs elicited by pattern‐flicker stimulation in 13 photosensitive epilepsy patients.Methods: Subjects were 13 photosensitive epilepsy patients (two male and 11 female patients; mean age ± SD, 20.9 ± 8.9 years) who were all sensitive to a flickering geometric‐pattern scene. We used a scene consisting of 15‐Hz flickering 4 c/deg stripe images lasting for 4 s. With a 14‐inch television set 2 m before a subject, we displayed the following video scenes: nonfiltered and filtered flickering‐stripe scenes; for the latter, two kinds of ATFSs with mild efficacy and strong efficacy were used. Three flickering‐stripe scenes altogether, each of which lasted for 4 s, were given at random with a 10‐s interval.Results: A nonfiltered flickering‐stripe scene elicited generalized PPRs in all patients; a filtered scene by use of an ATFS with mild efficacy elicited generalized PPRs in six patients (46%), whereas that by an ATFS with strong efficacy exhibited no PPRs.Conclusions: This study, using an ATFS, again shows suppressive efficacy on PPRs elicited by flickering‐pattern stimulation. Therefore a series of our studies suggested that ATFS may be useful as a preventive measure for photosensitive seizures triggered by stimulative flickering images from televisions or other displays.