Seizures and arousal: epileptiform activity and autonomic control
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Seizures and arousal: Interaction between epileptiform activity and central autonomic control in patients with chronic epilepsy
IRAS ID
141379
Contact name
Yoko Nagai
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Sussex, Brighton and Sussex Medical School
Research summary
Epilepsy is a neurological condition in which patients suffer from recurring seizures (fits). Medications do not work successfully in about one third of patients. My previous research showed that training patients to control the level of arousal can enable them to control their seizures, possibly for years. If we understand more about how this works then we can develop effective treatments and avoid the dangers and costs of uncontrolled seizures. Biofeedback trains people to control their bodily arousal: Small electrical changes measured from the surface of the skin reflect how aroused a person is. By displaying these measurements a person can learn over a few lessons to increase or decrease arousal at will. This can be used by patients with epilepsy to stop seizures. I want to understand how this works in the brain. I will use brain scans to look at brain activity when patients are resting, when they are focusing their attention and when they are performing biofeedback. I then want to train patients with biofeedback and rescan the patients to see whether the connections between areas of the brain that are known to work together have reorganized.
REC name
London - Brighton & Sussex Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/LO/1806
Date of REC Opinion
23 Jan 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion