Personalized Contingent Neurostimulation for Epilepsy by Machine Learning in Organic Brain Interfaces

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Epilepsy is a chronic, neurological condition characterized by unpredictable, disablingseizures. This devastating disorder increases mortality by 4 times and depression by 2 timespopulation rates. Unfortunately, epilepsy is extremely common, affecting 1 in 100 people, andin 33% of cases, medications do not prevent seizures. An emerging technology to aid suchpatients with drug-resistant epilepsy is contingent neurostimulation devices. These devicesare implanted in a patient so that they can detect epileptiform activity and electrically stimulatethe nervous system to prevent/abort seizures. Recently, two commercial contingentneurostimulators have been approved for treating epilepsy. These devices have provensuccessful at reducing seizure activity, however their efficacy is low. In particular, they arevery unlikely to produce seizure freedom, which is necessary to restore patient independenceand quality of life.The primary reasons why existing neurostimulation devices have had such limited successare that: (a) they use rudimentary (sparse and large) electrodes that poorly interface with thebrain and (b) they are extremely simplistic in their seizure detection and abortion capabilitiesdue to the use of basic electronics as constrained by energy limitations of an implant. Wepropose to combine (a) the far superior brain-interfacing electrode technology from ourpartner Panaxium and (b) our energy-efficient state-of-the-art implantable electronic circuitsthat employ artificial intelligence for optimal seizure prediction and prevention - to greatlyimprove the seizure-freedom efficacy of the neuromodulation therapy for intractable epilepsy.Our team is uniquely well qualified for this project. It is led by an expert in low-powerbiomedical and computational electronics (Genov), an epilepsy neurosurgeon and an expertin brain neurophysiology (Valiante), and Panaxiums Technology Commercialization Leaderand a 20-year industry veteran (Weinroth).