Imaging focal epilepsy in children: a developmental perspective

Epilepsy is the most common neurological disorder in children. About 30% of children with epilepsy do not respond to medical treatment and for these patients surgical removal of the brain tissue that generates seizures may be an effective treatment. Identifying regions in the brain that cause seizures using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be a predictor of good outcome after surgery. Identifying these using MRI for children and infants is complicated by the extensive changes occurring during normal brain development, as well as the variability in how brain images are collected between hospitals.

I plan to investigate how the brain develops in a group of children who do not have epilepsy and will try to predict where there is a brain abnormality in children with epilepsy. I have drawn together an international consortium of collaborators with widespread expertise and a critical mass of data. I will address these questions by creating models of early brain development in both health and disease.

At the end of this study I plan to develop and release analytical tools that will help inform future clinical decision-making for epilepsy and related neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders.