Researchers Develop Noninvasive Method to Pinpoint Epileptic Brain Networks

An interdisciplinary research team has developed a noninvasive method for identifying functional networks in the human brain that are responsible for generating seizures in children suffering from epilepsy. The test has pinpoint accuracy and can identify which parts of the brain are producing seizures, providing clinicians with the ability to resect them with brain surgery or ablate them with laser. Their findings are published in the scientific journal Brain.

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that affects about 3.4 million people in the United States, including around 470,000 children, representing 20-30% of children suffering from epilepsy. The new diagnostic tool developed by the team provides a safer and more effective treatment for children with uncontrolled seizures. Currently, epilepsy surgery offers a 50% chance of eliminating seizures, and identifying the epilepsy network with high precision offers an improved outcome for children who possess extensive neural plasticity, allowing them to recover better after surgery than adults.

The study maps non-invasively epileptogenic networks by virtual implantation of sensors estimated with electric and magnetic source imaging, in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. Highly connected hubs identified non-invasively with source imaging can predict the epileptogenic zone and surgical outcome better than spikes localized with conventional source localization methods.

In their study, the team used noninvasive techniques and advanced computational methods to measure the electric and magnetic signals generated by neural cells in the human brain. Then, they utilized advanced algorithms to compute undirected functional connectivity between different regions, networks, and nodes.

By identifying highly connected hubs in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, even in the absence of frank epileptiform activity, the virtual implantation of sensors through source imaging can non-invasively predict the epileptogenic zone and outcome, outperforming dipoles on spikes. They have also shown that surgical resection of these hubs predicts outcome better than dipoles.

“This research has real promise,” says Michael Cho, chair of the UTA Department of Bioengineering. “In many areas, the quicker and more accurately the problems are detected and solved, the better chance patients have of living normal lives. The diagnostic tool is great in that it is non-invasive as well.”