According to the World Health Organization epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases affecting people of all ages globally. It is estimated that up to 70% of people living with epilepsy could live seizure-free if properly diagnosed and treated.
Al Jalila Foundation research grant recipient Dr Hasan Mir from the American University of Sharjah is dedicated to developing a cost effective, more convenient, and accurate diagnosis that will enable improved treatment.
Treatment of epilepsy is facilitated by determining the brain location where a seizure originates. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans can be used to estimate this location but have the disadvantage of being specialised imaging modalities with limited availability and they are not suited to capturing transitory events, such as the seizure onset.
Dr Mir’s study investigates the use of electroencephalogram (EEG) source imaging as a cost-effective complement to an MRI in developing a high accuracy estimate of where the epileptic seizure location occurs on the brain.
The investigators have developed a real-time algorithm based on stochastic gradient descent to localise and track the space-time dynamics of brain sources. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm was verified for both simulated scenarios and clinical data. The team are currently working on further improvements to the algorithm along with a more comprehensive performance validation.