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NINDS Neurodegeneration Group Event Series
This workshop primarily focused on technological advances in neuroimaging that could be applied to understanding the neurobiology of epilepsy. Epilepsy basic scientists and clinicians met with experts on imaging to have an in-depth discussion on the potential role of imaging modalities in elucidating the microstructural and physiologic development of epilepsy. The presented topics included epileptogenesis at the cellular and microsystem or macrosystem levels, current technological developments in imaging and electrophysiology, specific application of neuroimaging on physiologic dysfunction, and general new approaches for anatomical, functional and molecular imaging of the brain. Issues that arose from these presentations included development of imaging measures of in vivo neuritic sprouting, as well as multi-modal measures of both resting and/or challenged (pharmacological, cognitive, hypercapnic, etc.) functional viability of in vivo neural structures. The need is to identify in vivo neuroimaging approaches that are predictive of the eventual development of epilepsy so that longitudinal measures of these parameters may be predictive or reflect epileptogenicity at earlier of later stages of the disease. Following the presentations, the participants separated into three smaller groups for the purposes of discussing how imaging can help address the issues presented. Each discussant group was asked to propose study design for targeting epileptogenesis in humans. Newly generated ideas from the participants in these two separate fields lead to specific research strategies that might be developed into research proposals. Specific recommendations that resulted from this workshop include:
Recommendations from this workshop are relevant to the epilepsy benchmark related to neuroimaging from the March 2000 "Curing Epilepsy" Conference. The overall goal of this benchmark is to "discover the range of anatomical, physiological, and molecular substrates associated with the epilepsies; define unambiguous markers of epileptogenicity." Specific sub-benchmarks seek ways to: develop a non-invasive imaging or physiological monitoring system capable of detecting an epileptic region; generate large-scale imaging databases; and establish a collaborative network of investigators.
Last updated February 09, 2005