Two important Canadian research projects recently received funding grants from Epilepsy Canada.
The first is led by Dr. Paolo Federico, an epileptologist with the Calgary Comprehensive Epilepsy Program. His study represents an advance in developing tools to better identify seizure foci in a challenging group of epilepsy patients.
Approximately 30% of patients with focal epilepsy (seizures arising from a localized brain region) have seizures that cannot be controlled by medication. In these cases, surgical removal of the seizure focus is often considered. The odds of staying seizure-free after surgery, is two and a half times greater when a lesion can be identified. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging is the usual methodology to identify a seizure focus and the surgical target.
Dr. Federico explains, "Twenty per cent of patients with untreatable focal seizures have no visible abnormality on conventional MR scans. Thus, new, non-invasive methods to identify MR abnormalities are needed." Recently, new quantitative MR techniques have been developed to allow the sensitive detection of MR signal abnormalities across the entire brain that may be there but are missed by simple visual inspection of MR images. These techniques may allow for more refined seizure focus localization, and possibly a more precise surgical resection.
In awarding the grant, Epilepsy Canada President Dr. W. McIntyre Burnham said," The committee felt that Dr. Federico's project would significantly contribute to improved patient care in the very near future."
Dr. Sbastien Desgent, PhD, has received an Epilepsy Canada Research Grant for a second straight year. Working at the Department of Research CHU Sainte-Justine in Montreal, he continues to advance knowledge on the consequences of chronic early-life stress on the risk of developing epilepsy as a subject ages.
Dr. Desgent says, "We think that stress contributes to hippocampal changes that predispose individuals to develop as Temporal Lobe Epilepsy later in life." Dr. Desgent's research project will contribute towards a better understanding of epileptogenesis as well as the impact of early-life stressors on normal brain and hippocampal development in infants. "With our study, we want to understand what makes stress so harmful to the hippocampus, an important region of the brain, and so vital to development of epilepsy." Says Dr. Desgent
