Active control of epileptic seizures and diagnosis based on critical systems-like behavior

A system for mitigating or managing seizures in an animal, comprising:

• at least one sensor that is configured to sense brain activity of the animal and to supply one or more signals representative of brain activity;
• a processor coupled to the sensor that measures energy in the one or more signals to record a size of energy for a detected brain activity event, generates a time-varying histogram of energy distribution of a time interval based on recorded energy size, determines whether the time-varying histogram of energy distribution is indicative of self-organized criticality behavior of the brain activity of the animal, and generates one or more controls based on the self-organized criticality behavior determined from the one or more signals;
• and
• a stimulating apparatus coupled to the processor and responsive to the controls from the processor, wherein the stimulating apparatus applies the animal stimulations that are configured to dissipate and thereby raise a seizure threshold to make subsequent clinically significant epileptiform activity in the animal less likely.