Periodic Reporting for period 3 - Epilepsy_Core (The core and effects of epilepsy: from chronic disease to curable disorder through innovative guided surgery)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-03-01 al 2023-08-31
Epilepsy is a common neurological disease which affects people's tremendously. It affects peoples lives in many ways, not only by causing seizures, but also by disturbing the normal brain to function at 100%. If the origin of epileptic activity in the brain is focal, it can be cured by epilepsy surgery. This is currently successful in 50-70%, but this number could be higher if we would be able to define the focus of epilepsy more precisely. The goal of our project is to delineate the focus of epilepsy with intra-operative recordings of the electrical brain activity, and look for small vibrations in the signal: high frequency oscillations. The project objectives are to improve both the recording methods and the signal analysis methods to better define the core of epilepsy and to understand the effect of epileptic activity on the rest of the healthy brain.
We are stuck in a vicious circle when it comes to epilepsy surgery. We have few patients, thus little data, while the disease is complex, especially after the disease is long-standing. Complex data yield low success rates and low success rates yield less patients and thus little data. Also, we lack the materials to combine the information we gather intra-operatively. With this project we want to break this vicious circle by analyzing data from many people and recording during more surgeries than normally done, especially in surgeries with a clear 'simple' focus and build a large database to tune the signal analysis. Also, we want to develop software to facilitate clinic and research.
Breaking the vicious circle can change this lifelong disease into a curable disorder.
We are stuck in a vicious circle when it comes to epilepsy surgery. We have few patients, thus little data, while the disease is complex, especially after the disease is long-standing. Complex data yield low success rates and low success rates yield less patients and thus little data. Also, we lack the materials to combine the information we gather intra-operatively. With this project we want to break this vicious circle by analyzing data from many people and recording during more surgeries than normally done, especially in surgeries with a clear 'simple' focus and build a large database to tune the signal analysis. Also, we want to develop software to facilitate clinic and research.
Breaking the vicious circle can change this lifelong disease into a curable disorder.
We build a database of over 1000 people who underwent epilepsy surgery and over 400 invasive EEG recordings and we are putting all data into a uniform structure. This database will allow future signal analysis using advanced signal analysis methods and artificial intelligence.
We compared epileptic activity to inflammation markers in the brain, and found that the spread of epileptic activity was associated with increased inflammation. We compared cognitive functioning in terms of IQ to epileptic activity but did not find a direct relation there. We also looked at how different lesions and sites in the brain affect epileptic activity. This work is still in progress. We started performing the first high-density electrocorticography recording during surgery, this was delayed due to the COVID pandemic. We started developing software for better visualisation of intra-operative recordings and we started up a collaboration with a company that produces special electrode grids to develop electrodes that fulfill our needs better.
We compared epileptic activity to inflammation markers in the brain, and found that the spread of epileptic activity was associated with increased inflammation. We compared cognitive functioning in terms of IQ to epileptic activity but did not find a direct relation there. We also looked at how different lesions and sites in the brain affect epileptic activity. This work is still in progress. We started performing the first high-density electrocorticography recording during surgery, this was delayed due to the COVID pandemic. We started developing software for better visualisation of intra-operative recordings and we started up a collaboration with a company that produces special electrode grids to develop electrodes that fulfill our needs better.
The size of our database is unique and this will allow future extensive signal analysis research and progress.
We started up a very complementary collaboration with a medical start-up company to develop special electrode grids for our purposes. This can shift possibilities as these recordings are yet not possible.
We expect that at the end of the project we have advanced recording and analysis techniques and hopefully already have software that can bring this all together to translate this progress into clinical valuable tools.
We started up a very complementary collaboration with a medical start-up company to develop special electrode grids for our purposes. This can shift possibilities as these recordings are yet not possible.
We expect that at the end of the project we have advanced recording and analysis techniques and hopefully already have software that can bring this all together to translate this progress into clinical valuable tools.