Comparison of DSSP and tSSS algorithms for removing artifacts from vagus nerve stimulators in magnetoencephalography data

Objective . Large-amplitude artifacts from vagus nerve stimulator (VNS) implants for refractory epilepsy affect magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings and are difficult to reject, resulting in unusable data from this important population of patients who are frequently evaluated for surgical treatment of epilepsy. Here we compare the performance of two artifact removal algorithms for MEG data: dual signal subspace projection (DSSP) and temporally extended signal space separation (tSSS). Approach . Each algorithm’s performance was first evaluated in simulations. We then tested the performance of each algorithm on resting-state MEG data from patients with VNS implants. We also examined how each algorithm improved source localization of somatosensory evoked fields in patients with VNS implants. Main results . DSSP and tSSS algorithms have a similar ability to reject interference in both simulated and real MEG data if the origin location for tSSS is appropriately set. If the origin set for tSSS is inappropriate, the signal after tSSS can be distorted due to a mismatch between the internal region and the actual source space. Both DSSP and tSSS are able to remove large-amplitude artifacts from outside the brain. DSSP might be a better choice than tSSS when the choice of origin location for tSSS is difficult. Significance . Both DSSP and tSSS algorithms can recover distorted MEG recordings from people with intractable epilepsy and VNS implants, improving epileptic spike identification and source localization of both functional activity and epileptiform activity.