International Physician Update

A Judicious Jolt for Seizures

Gregory Bergey uses computer chips to detect seizures.

 The light at the end of epilepsy’s tunnel has been all too dim,” says neurologist Gregory Bergey, who could likely fine-tune patients’ medications
in his sleep.

“We’ve seen nine new drugs in the last decade, but fail on two or three of them and the chance of a fourth ending your seizures is only about 5 percent. Yes, we’re better at matching medicines and patients, but are we keeping any more from having seizures? I doubt it.”

Yet, if several tactics now moving into trials are shown to work, real change will come, he says. “And none too soon.” The approach Bergey is shepherding reflects recent thought that mildly zapping the central nervous system with electrical currents can be therapeutic.

“Seizures are abnormal brain excitation that we’ve countered with drugs that inhibit neural activity,” he says. “But new ideas on how seizures begin and propagate are leading us to try to disrupt them with an excitatory stimulus.”

Basically, the implanted External Responsive Neurostimulator System, a device half the size of a Ritz cracker, delivers current in a response to seizures. Sensing the earliest seconds of wayward activity, a computer chip is “tuned” to detect a seizure pattern specific for each patient. Then, the researchers say, the brief, mild stimulus that’s released should disrupt or stop the seizure.