Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Neocortical Seizure Activity
Seizures are defined as sudden, abnormal electrical disturbances in the brain. Patients diagnosed with epilepsy have chronic, recurrent seizures and often require clinical intervention to prevent these episodes. Unfortunately, a large portion of epilepsy patients do not respond to current treatment options, in part due to a lack of understanding on how seizures develop in the brain. This talk will discuss some of the complex dynamics associated with seizure activity and how these dynamics can educate epilepsy treatment. Using a combination of human electrical recordings, biological experiments and computational modeling, we have studied the dynamics of seizures at various spatial scales, ranging from a single neuron up to large neuronal networks (cm-scale). We have analyzed the interactions between the neurons that produce the seizure and the surrounding tissue and investigated how these interactions can define a seizure's trajectory. Finally, we have identified electrical markers that are representative of these dynamics and could be applied to clinical treatment.