Grant: Project Grant

Epilepsy affects 1% of the population and often starts in childhood. Children with epilepsy suffer from repetitive, unprovoked epileptic seizures and longstanding epilepsy often prevents normal development. Children and adults can be at high risk of developing epilepsy because of brain injury or genetic predisposition. New studies suggest that early treatment can prevent patients from developing epilepsy after injury and this might improve chances for a normal life. To use these preventive treatments, we first have to determine which individuals are at the highest risk for seizures to avoid unnecessary treatments. In this study, we aim to analyze newly discovered oscillations in the electroencephalogram (EEG) called high frequency oscillations (HFOs). HFOs might be better at estimating the prognosis of individuals than the traditionally used epileptic spikes. We believe that HFOs can tell us immediately after a brain injury whether someone will later develop epilepsy. To prove this, we will record EEG in three different groups of children with an increased risk for epilepsy: i) previously healthy children after a first seizure, ii) neonates with brain injury from a lack of oxygen, and iii) children after stroke. We will use current data from our stroke and neuro-critical care databases and collect new patients to determine the value of HFO in predicting epilepsy in these groups. In the future, we hope to calculate an individual epilepsy risk for each patient using HFO. This would allow us to try novel treatments for preventing epilepsy and eventually significantly reduce the number of individuals suffering from seizures.