SINIMA
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Seeing Inside: Non-Invasive Mapping of Brain Activity in Epilepsy
IRAS ID
305852
Contact name
Khalid Hamandi
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff and Vale UHB
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Seizures continue in around a third of patients with epilepsy despite the best available medication; in some, epilepsy surgery can stop seizures if brain areas causing seizures can be found. Current brain scans aren’t always able to do this, meaning patients miss out on possible life changing treatment. We would like to investigate further the use of two advanced brain scanning methods, magnetoencephalography (MEG), and functional MRI (fMRI). Both these methods can identify abnormal brain areas causing seizures, but more research is needed. We will use the latest technological advances, with very powerful 7T-MRI, and MEG, and new analysis methods. We will scan 30 patients who are due to undergo a special type of EEG (stereo-EEG) as part of their standard care, where electrodes are surgically placed into the brain to pin-point where seizures come from. We will compare the results of our scans – where we don’t need to ‘enter the brain’ and are considered non-invasive – with the results from the invasive stereo-EEG. We hope the results will show better and safer methods to locate epileptic brain areas that could be tested in future larger clinical trials.
REC name
London - Chelsea Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/PR/1411
Date of REC Opinion
14 Dec 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion