Epileptic patients in the Seizure Monitoring Unit (SMU) at the Foothills Medical Centre regularly spend days in isolation as doctors monitor their symptoms, but volunteers are stepping up to provide companionship and critical support when it’s needed most. The SMU is a clinical space with four treatment beds where the brain waves of patients are […]
Key takeaways: Human GABAergic interneurons were implanted in two patients with drug-refractory focal epilepsy. Preliminary results show participants have experienced greater than 90% seizure reduction since surgery. BOSTON — Implantation of GABAergic interneuron cells in two patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy resulted in significant seizure reduction, according to preliminary data presented at the American Academy […]
Neurosurgeons are turning to whole-brain simulations to better understand and treat epilepsy According to a Singularity Hub article, a team of neurosurgeons is using whole-brain simulations to pinpoint the source of their patients’ seizures. In a recent study, the team used brain simulations to identify the origin of seizures in two patients with epilepsy. The simulations allowed […]
Surgery is a cost-effective treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy, with limited evidence suggesting that VNS, RNS, and DBS are too. In patients with drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) considered surgically eligible, epilepsy surgery is shown to be a more cost-effective treatment than standard medical management. These are the findings of a systematic review published in Neurology. Patients with DRE […]
Epilepsies are chronic neurological disorders in which large groups of neurons firing at the same time generate electrical activity that causes seizures and involuntary movements. They are one of the most common brain diseases in children and, in almost a quarter of cases, patients do not respond to standard medical treatments. Life-threatening treatment-resistant epilepsy often results […]
An ongoing clinical trial aims to test whether digital models built using brain-scan data can help to identify where seizures originate. Virtual models representing the brains of people with epilepsy could help to enable more-effective treatments of the disease by showing neurosurgeons precisely which zones are responsible for seizures. The models, created using a computational […]
