Epilepsy – imaging of brain activity

This research was completed on 14 January 2005

Project Leader	Dr L Lemieux, PhD and Professor D R Fish, MD, FRCP.
Location	Epilepsy Research Department, Institute of Neurology, University College London.
Start date	1 March 2003
End date	14 January 2005
Grant amount	£71,975.00
Grant code	AP0907

Epilepsy is the single most common serious neurological disorder, with 1 in 200 of the total UK population affected by chronic epilepsy. Approximately 20% of these patients have such severe epilepsy that surgery must be considered but it can only take place if the epileptic focus can be localized. During an epileptic seizure, the normally well-ordered electrical activity in the brain is suddenly disturbed by chaotic and unregulated electrical discharges. This team are world leaders in using a technique which combines the recording of electroencephalograms (EEG) and functional MRI (fMRI) to obtain brain scans during events of interest or ‘spikes’. These spikes indicate electrical activity in the brain and they are much more frequent than seizures and easier to record. The aim is to better localize the origin of the spike as this may help the surgical treatment of epilepsy.