How can you prevent seizures?

MIT researchers are developing a device that could detect and prevent epileptic seizures before they become debilitating. Epilepsy affects about 50 million people worldwide, and while anticonvulsant medications can reduce the frequency of seizures, the drugs are ineffective for as many as one in three patients.

The new treatment builds on an existing treatment for epilepsy, the Cyberonics vagus nerve stimulator (VNS), which is often used in patients who do not respond to drugs. A defibrillator typically implanted under the patient’s collarbone stimulates the left vagus nerve about every five minutes, which has been shown to help reduce the frequency and severity of seizures in many patients.

The MIT researchers and colleagues at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School seek to improve the treatment by combining it with a detector that measures brain activity to predict when a seizure is about to occur. The new device would sense the oncoming seizure and then activate the VNS. “Our contribution is the software that decides when to turn the stimulator on,” said John Guttag, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Guttag developed the system along with Ali Shoeb, a graduate student in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. This work was funded by the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, the U.S. Army and MIT’s Project Oxygen.