Creating a digital cure for epilepsy

Rice University News & Media

A team of Rice engineering students recently took top honors and a $5,000 prize for its development of a potential digital cure for epilepsy.
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by unpredictable, recurrent seizures that can pose a risk to a patient’s safety. When undergoing a seizure, the brain is considered to be in an “ictal” state. Team Ictal Inhibitors‘ goal was to develop a neurostimulator that stimulates the brain to prevent the onset of seizures.
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To create the system, the team first needed to develop a seizure-prediction algorithm. The students created a machine-learning algorithm that was “very good” at predicting seizures: It predicted all seizures in their data set at least two minutes before their onset with 3.9 false positives per hour. The team then transferred this prediction algorithm to custom hardware that runs on patient data to predict seizures in real time.
“What our system is trying to do is predict and prevent seizures in real time,” said Sarah Hooper, a senior electrical engineering major. “The first stage of our system is to record neural activity from the brain. That activity is then sent to our piece of hardware, which has the algorithm that produces a seizure prediction. Using the electrical signals that are produced in the brain, we can predict if a seizure is going to occur in the next five minutes or so.”
Hooper said that if a seizure were about to occur, the hardware would then communicate back to electrodes implanted in the brain to apply electrical neurostimulation, which can actually stop the seizure before it occurs.

“Three years ago, the project was basically an idea,” said Erik Biegert, a senior who will graduate in May with an electrical engineering degree. “About one-third of the 3 million epilepsy patients in the United States don’t respond to anti-seizure medications. The only option left for those ...

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