Research groups

[149] Epilepsia and Surgery

Epilepsy surgery is an additional treatment option for patients (children and adults) suffering from pharmacoresistant epilepsy. In the context of presurgical epilepsy evaluation, 2 questions are of major importance: 1) precise localization of the epileptogenic focus, 2) localization of vital cortex, which has to be spared during the operation. Related to these 2 issues, our patient oriented research focuses on the development of non-invasive tools for focus and cortical function localization. Related to the latter issue, several projects addressing also more scientific aspects of cortical processes are under way, including healthy volunteers, patients with scalp and intracranial electrodes. In particular patients with intracranial electrodes offer the unique opportunity to study cognitive processes directly in the human brain, such as face processing, language processing or experiential phenomena.
Further areas of interest:
(1) investigation of physiological and pathological processes by high resolution 128-channel scalp EEG,
(2) how does epilepsy interfere with normal development in very young epileptic children and can that be halted by surgical treatment (in collaboration with the Neuropediatric groups of the university Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne; Dr. E. Roulet-Perez),
(3) coupling of fMRI with EEG in the analysis of physiological and pathological signals (collaboration with Neuroradiologie, University Hospital of Geneva, Dr. F. Lazeyras).

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