Sridevi V Sarma
Johns Hopkins University, USA
Title: Novel computational tool for localization of the Epileptogenc zone from intracranial EEG recordings
Biography
Biography: Sridevi V Sarma
Abstract
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by abnormal electrical activity in the brain, called seizures. The region of the brain that causes the seizures is called the epileptogenic zone (EZ), and may differ for each patient. Epilepsy affects 60 million people worldwide, of whom over 30% of cases do not respond to medication or have medically refractory epilepsy (MRE). There are currently two treatments for patients with focal MRE: surgical resection, in which the EZ is removed in hopes of stopping seizures, or neurostimulation, in which the EZ is electrically stimulated to suppress seizures. Both treatments depend on accurately localizing the EZ, and when successful, both treatments are life-changing. EZTrack is a novel computational tool that generates a simple-to-read heat map overlaid over the patient’s brain scan that displays to clinicians which regions of the brain are highly likely to be in the EZ. EZTrack implements network-base data analytics and was tested in a retrospective study that included 42 patients who had resective surgeries. To test its efficacy, we compared EZTracks red-hot regions (ROI) to resected regions using electrocorticographic data per patient. If the complete ROI was resected, then we predicted a successful surgery; else we predicted a failure. For 42 patients, EZtrack achieved a prediction accuracy of 95%. It also correctly predicted all 17 failed surgeries, which is especially important to indicate to clinicians whether to resample different areas of the brain before deciding to resect.