ER-detect: a pipeline for robust detection of early evoked responses in BIDS-iEEG electrical stimulation data

Human brain connectivity can be measured in different ways. Intracranial EEG (iEEG) measurements during single pulse electrical stimulation provide a unique way to assess the spread of electrical information with millisecond precision. To provide a robust workflow to process these cortico-cortical evoked potential (CCEP) data and detect early evoked responses in a fully automated and reproducible fashion, we developed Early Response (ER)-detect. ER-detect is an open-source Python package and Docker application to preprocess BIDS structured iEEG data and detect early evoked CCEP responses. ER-detect can use three response detection methods, which were validated against 14 manually annotated CCEP datasets from two different sites by four independent raters. Results showed that ER-detect’s automated detection performed on par with the inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s Kappa of ∼0.6). Moreover, ER-detect was optimized for processing large CCEP datasets, to be used in conjunction with other connectomic investigations. ER-detect provides a highly efficient standardized workflow such that iEEG-BIDS data can be processed in a consistent manner and enhance the reproducibility of CCEP based connectivity results. ### Competing Interest Statement BNL has no personal financial interests, but declares intellectual property licensed to Cadence Neuroscience Inc (contractual rights waived; all funds to Mayo Clinic) and Seer Medical Inc (contractual rights waived; all funds to Mayo Clinic), site investigator (Medtronic EPAS, Neuroelectrics tDCS for Epilepsy), industry consultant (Epiminder, Medtronic, Neuropace, Philips Neuro; all funds to Mayo Clinic), and educational support (Dixi Medical). NMG declares industry consultant for NeuroOne Inc., funds to Mayo Clinic. GAW has, unrelated to this research, licensed intellectual property developed at Mayo Clinic to Cadence Neuroscience Inc. and NeuroOne Inc. MvdB, GOV, KJM, DvB, GJMH, FSSL and DH declare no competing interests.