Research Focus

Basic Mechanisms of Epilepsy and Spreading Depolarization

Epilepsy, the fourth most common neurological disorder, is diagnosed in roughly 1% of the population. Despite over a century of anti-epileptic treatment development, still one third of patients suffer from poorly controlled seizures. Having a better understanding of the aberrant activity that underlies these recurrent seizures may be instrumental for closing this treatment gap. To this end, I leverage intravital two-photon calcium imaging in rodent models to map the spatiotemporal dynamics of various cell types and organelles in the brain during seizure initiation, propagation and termination. I have also extended this work to the study of spreading depolarizations given their implications for seizure termination.

Ablative Therapies for Epilepsy and Movement Disorders

Beyond the bench, my clinical work is focused on evaluating our current arsenal of treatment approaches for medically intractable epilepsy. A subset of pharmacoresistant patients are candidates for surgical procedures. This includes electrical neuromodulation, such as through responsive brain stimulation (RNS) or deep brain stimulation (DBS), as well as ablative and resective procedures. Emory has been at the forefront of laser ablative procedures, particularly stereotactic laser amygdalohippocampotomy (SLAH) for mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). I curated and evaluated our program's outcomes for what was the largest single center experience with the procedure and continue to be involved with tracking the long-term outcome of these patients. Additionally, I have co-authored several papers and chapters on the historical and contemporary use of ablative procedures for movement disorders.

Temporal Interference for Incisionless Neuromodulation

Temporal interference (TI) is a neuromodulatory method for incessionless brain stimulation that can achieve precise focal modulation, including in deep nuclei, while minimizing off-target effects. Using two or more sources of high frequency alternating current carriers, overlapping electric fields are generated in the brain such that areas of interference cause amplitude modulation of the fields and result in low frequency stimulation. Using intravital microscopy, I have been working to evaluate the spatiotemporal features of individual neuron responsiveness to TI stimulation, with the goal to refine stimulation parameters for more precise and specific neuromodulation.

Bioluminescence-Optogenetics

description pending

Funding

My research and training has been supported over the years through fellowships from the National Institute of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy.