Support vector machine based epilepsy prediction using textural features of MRI

Abstract

Epilepsy is a disorder of the central nervous system, specifically the brain. It is a neurological malfunction affecting about 1% of the population and is the third most common neurological disorder following rheumatic heart disease and Alzheimer's disease, but it imposes higher costs on society. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is one of the most common diagnostic tests used for patients for epilepsy prediction. Shortage of radiologists and the large volume of MRI scan images that need to be analyzed may lead to labor intensive, expensive and inaccurate prediction. Hence there is a need to generate an efficient prediction model for making a correct diagnosis of epilepsy and accurate prediction of its type. This paper describes the modeling of epilepsy prediction using Support Vector Machines (SVM), a machine learning algorithm. The prediction model has been generated by training the support vector machine with descriptive features derived from MRI data of 350 patients and observed that the SVM based model with a Radial Basis Function (RBF) kernel produces 93.87% of prediction accuracy. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.