Drs. Rolston & Smith Receive CNS Research in Functional Neurosurgery Award for Epilepsy Study
Two University of Utah neurosurgery faculty members, Elliot H. Smith, PhD, and Director of Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, John D. Rolston, MD, PhD, were recognized for their research at the recent Congress of Neurological Surgeons2021 Annual Meeting held in Austin, Texas, October 16–20.
Dr. Rolston and Research Assistant Professor Dr. Smith received the CNS 2021 Stereotactic & Functional Neurosurgery Basic Science Award for their paper“Human interictal epileptiform discharges are traveling waves reflecting ictal self-organization,”which was originally published as a pre-print on bioRxiv.org.
#tweeprint alert!!!
Check out our latest #preprint using Utah style microelectrode arrays to understand how interictal epileptiform discharges relate to spontaneous human #seizures: https://t.co/0o0KDT3MDz@UofUNeurosurg @UofUCNC @UtahNeurosci
— Elliot Smith (@50kDinar) April 29, 2021
The work focused on gaining a deeper understanding of the mysterious relationship between interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs)—the random bursts of electrical activity between seizures—and seizure-generating tissue in the brain. The paper focused on a special dataset of recordings from human epilepsy patients using a brain–computer interface developed by a Utah-based neurotech company, Blackrock Neurotech. Dr. Smith used similar recordings to study the origin point and wide-ranging effects of seizures during his postdoctoral work at Columbia University. A biophysical theoretical model of neuron activity during seizures inspired by the seizure results in turn inspired the study on IEDs.
Despite occurring more often than the seizures themselves (up to several times per minute), IEDs are less studied. Drs. Smith and Rolston algorithmically combed through weeks’ worth of data from the brain-computer interfaces in surgical patients from the University of Utah and Columbia University hospitals. They found that most IEDs happen in brain tissue outside of the seizure site and move toward it, indicating that IEDs provide useful information for localizing the seizure focus.
Amazing work by @RolstonJohn and @50kDinar! Winners of the CNS 2021 Stereotactic & Functional Neurosurgery Basic Science Award @UofUNeurosurg @CNS_Update pic.twitter.com/cbtdQGaQWq
— Shervin Rahimpour (@rshervin) October 18, 2021
Given current study results and previous findings, seizure data from this study could eventually be used to better localize seizures in epilepsy patients who are undergoing intracranial monitoring.
Through their work, Dr. Smith and Dr. Rolston explore how electrical stimulation can be used to map and ultimately rewire the diseased brain.
More information on Dr. Rolston’s neuromodulation laboratory’s research at the University of Utah can be found here.