The heart of epilepsy: innovative guided epilepsy surgery

Epilepsy surgery can cure epilepsy if the diseased brain tissue can be identified. The electrical brain signal shows small vibrations that can be picked up by advanced recordings. The project EpiHeart builds on a established public private partnership between the UMC Utrecht, a medical device designer company (Productzaken) and a company specialized in building neurosurgical monitoring devices to unravel the best recording and signal analysis and build this into a medical device to guide the neurosurgeon.

Epilepsy affects 1% of the population and represent a life-long disease. Epilepsy surgery can help, but only if the source of the disease is known and this method is now restricted to severe cases with usually a clear MRI lesion. If a way can be found to directly guide the neurosurgeon towards the epileptogenic brain tissue, we may offer 1) cure in many people from an otherwise lifelong disease 2) cure of epilepsy in people undergoing brain surgery for other primary reasons, e.g. brain tumors 3) develop a product that can aid surgery in less-specialised centers and thus less developed countries.

The diseased brain tissue is mirrored in an aberrant electrical signal, especially with high frequency oscillations above 80 Hz. The envisioned product combines innovative recording and analysis methods which will be fed back to the neurosurgeon for direct intraoperative guidance.

The end product will combine high density highly sampling recordings, potentially combined with onsite electrical stimulation, advanced interactive analysis software and projection on the brain surface to navigate the neurosurgeon.