HOUSTON – A University of Houston professor of biomedical engineering received a $3.7 million BRAIN Initiative grant to create a device that can stop epileptic seizures before they begin.
Nuri Firat Ince, who pioneered a dramatic decrease in the time it takes to detect the seizure onset zone in the brain, received the $3.7 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. He reduced to the time, by weeks, of locating the SOZ, the actual part of the brain that causes seizures in patients with epilepsy, by detecting high frequency oscillations (HFO) which form repetitive waveform patterns that identify their location in the SOZ, according to a news release.
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Ince said he now plans to use HFOs to close the loop, translating them into seizure control applications, a method never-before explored.
“If this can be achieved, then HFOs can be strategically translated as a neurobiomarker into closed-loop seizure control applications,” Ince said. “We hypothesize that pathologic stereotyped HFOs can be captured with the implantable Brain Interchange (BIC) system and spatial topography of these events can be utilized by the implantable system to deliver targeted electrical stimulation to achieve seizure control.”
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