Neurodevelopmental Effects of Antiepileptic Drugs

Kimford J. Meador, MD

About 24,000 children in the United States are born each year to women with epilepsy and the vast majority are fine, but a national study aims to further reduce the risk of problems in their children.

Researchers want to know if the medicines the mothers-to-be must take to control seizures have a negative, lasting impact on their babies’ developing brains. Click here for more information about this research study.

LINAC Radiosurgery for Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Stephen Eisenschenck, MD

Epilepsy affects 1% of the population with an incidence of 30 to 50 per 100,000. Approximately one-third of patients remain refractory to standard antiepileptic drug therapy, and new antiepileptic drugs and alternative forms of therapy have had limited benefit. Conventional epilepsy surgery requires the patient to undergo general anesthesia followed by a craniotomy and surgical resection of the epileptic focus. This requires a hospitalization for approximately seven days followed by several weeks of recovery before returning to baseline levels of activity. Utilization of out-patient stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has been demonstrated to be effective for surgical ablation of cerebral tumors and vascular malformations and has recently been employed for the treatment of medically refractory epilepsy as an alternative to conventional surgery. We have proposed human clinical trials assessing the efficacy of LINAC SRS for the treatment of medically intractable mesial temporal lobe epilepsy utilizing a minimum radiation doses.

Responsive Neurostimulator System Pivotal-A Clinical

Kimford J. Meador, MD

To assess the safety and to demonstrate that the Responsive Neurostimulator (RNS™) system is effective as an adjunctive therapy in reducing the frequency of seizures in individuals 18 years of age or older with partial onset seizures that are refractory to two or more antiepileptic medications.

The information learned from this study will help the study doctors and NeuroPace determine the usefulness of an implanted device to help treat seizures. Participation in this study may give patients another way to treat their seizures in addition to the usual treatments of antiseizure medications, vagus nerve stimulation and epilepsy surgery. During the Blinded Evaluation Period and Open Label Evaluation Period periods, the RNS system may be programmed to send electrical stimulation to decrease the number seizures, but it does not cure epilepsy. For more information about this study, please visit www.seizurestudy.com.

A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of ganaxolone as add-on therapy in adult subjects with epilepsy consisting of uncontrolled partial-onset seizures

Kimford J. Meador, MD

The main purpose of this research study is to examine the safety and effectiveness of ganaxolone, as an add-on drug to regular antiepileptic medication(s), for controlling uncontrolled partial‑onset seizures in subjects with epilepsy. We will also gather information about the most effective dose and possible drug interactions.

fMRI Mapping of Language and Memory Functions in Epilepsy

David Loring, Ph.D.

The purpose of this research study is to learn how the brain analyzes information and how the brain functions to produce behavior. We hope to determine how the performance of different types of tasks affects the blood oxygenation in different areas of the brain. Procedures that will be done for this research include MRI, the tasks of attention, memory, and language, and neuropsychological testing.

Links to other research websites

• Department of Neurology
• McKnight Brain Institute
• University of Florida Epilepsy Research Laboratory
• Epilepsy Neuroprosthetics Research Group