Pediatric Epilepsy
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Summary
The purpose of the research is to better understand how the human brain accomplishes the basic cognitive tasks of learning new information, recalling stored information, making decisions or choices about presented information and self-control. These investigations are critical to better understand human cognition and to design treatments for disorders of learning, memory, decision making and cognitive control.
Description
The knowledge gained from these experiments furthers the understanding of the brain's electrical activity and its relation to epilepsy and to human cognition. This increased knowledge base may lead to insights regarding better treatments for cognitive deficits and to improve epilepsy surgery and other therapies for seizure disorders. Functional mapping is an important element of planning for resection surgery because it enables the surgeon to avoid the resection of brain regions that could be especially crucial to cognitive function. By uncovering the iEEG (Intracranial Electroencephalography)…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 3–25 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Candidates will be those who are admitted to the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit and are able to participate in a pre-operative evaluation using depth intracranial electrodes. The candidacy is determined independently by the patient's treating physician as part of the patient's routine medical care. * Patients have drug-intractable epilepsy undergoing invasive monitoring in the EMU. Exclusion Criteria: * Determination by clinicians and investigators that a patient is unable to complete the behavioral tasks required for the protocol due to either cognitive limits, psychologica…
Interventions
- BehavioralCedrus RB series response pad; Adtech Behnke-Fried micro-electrodes; Neuralynx or Blackrock electrophysiology system; Blackrock Cerestim or Natus Nicolet stimulator
Devices listed are components of a single intervention that includes: Record patient responses (Cedrus RB series response boxes), record neuronal activity (Neuralynx or BlackRock) from electrodes (Adtech Behnke-Fried), apply intermittent electrical stimulation (Blackrock Cerestim, Natus Nicolet; parameters consistent with safe ranges across reported studies)
Location
- Children's Medical Center DallasDallas, Texas