WAND-JME
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Welsh Advanced Neuroimaging Database in Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (WAND-JME)
IRAS ID
271935
Contact name
Khalid Hamandi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff University
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 9 months, 4 days
Research summary
This research aims to combine the clinical expertise, and the patient resource at the Epilepsy Unit, University Hospital of Wales, and the new Cardiff University Brain Imaging Research Centre (CUBRIC) to identify brain structural and functional alterations in people presenting with newly onset epilepsy.
Epilepsy is a disorder of neural networks, resulting in seizures, and co-occurring neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric problems.
Although initial epileptogenesis may arise from local neuronal circuit disruption via imbalances in neurotransmitter systems, broader impairments, including the most damaging effects on cognition and development, may be mediated by disruption of regional and global networks of coupled activity. Epilepsy therefore generates structure/function variance across a variety of scales, from local and global oscillatory dynamics, metabolic and haemodynamic disturbance to cortical and white-matter microstructure. In some ways Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (JME) is the archetypal disorder of a systems or network epilepsy.
JME is one of the most common epilepsy syndromes and its underlying basis remains unknown. JME is a lifelong condition usually presenting in the second decade of life with myoclonic jerks (MJ), absence seizures and generalised tonic clonic seizures. Seizures typically occur in the first hour after waking and are more likely after sleep deprivation. MRI brain scans are normal to visual inspection, and there are no other structural, biochemical or metabolic clinical markers in JME. Clinical electroencephalography (EEG) in JME is characterised by normal background rhythms, and abnormal interictal spike and polyspike wave discharges with frontal predominance, and photosensitivity is present in up to 30% of people with JME.
Several lines of evidence support the notion of JME as a network disorder with predominantly frontal, but also parieto-occipital lobes and sub-cortical involvement - from neuropsychological, neurophysiological and brain imaging studies.REC name
South Central - Berkshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/SC/0576
Date of REC Opinion
22 Nov 2019
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion