Perturbations in Epilepsy 2022
Perturbations in Epilepsy is a hot-topics workshop series organized by the Center for Systems Modelling and Quantitative Biomedicine (SMQB) in association with the University of Birmingham, UK.
Epilepsy is a chronic and complex neurological disorder affecting about 65 million people around the world. It manifests as pathological electrical activity in the brain, and may lead to recurrent, unprovoked seizures, affecting the quality of life. Several physiological factors are known to affect the seizure likelihood, including sleep, hormones, and stress. It is imperative to understand the role of these triggers so that they can be identified and avoided. However, the triggers may affect different individuals in different ways and their effects may change over time even within the same individual. We are organising this workshop series to better understand how various seizure triggers affect the brain networks and predispose them to a seizure.
We hosted the first edition at the Edgbaston Park Hotel in the University of Birmingham Campus on April 6 and 7, 2022. We brought together experts from different backgrounds to further our mechanistic understanding of the interplay between brain networks, seizure likelihood and these physiological triggers.
The workshop had three thematic sessions:
- Triggers of seizures
- Sleep and epilepsy
- Hormones and seizures
The workshop opened with an account from our Centre Director, Prof. John Terry, highlighting the need for establishing the relationship between seizures and their triggers and its impact in the management of epilepsy in a community-based setting. Subsequently, we also had patients with lived experience of epilepsy share their experiences and what they expect researchers to do to improve their quality of life.
Each thematic session opened with a clinical perspective, followed by experimental or mechanistic studies, and concluded with a modelling perspective, outlining how the observed phenomena could be translated into equations.
At the end of Day 1, a poster session was held in association with Neuronostics, a Bristol-based start-up working in epilepsy diagnosis and prognosis. At the end of Day 2, the workshop concluded with an interaction session, where in the participants got an opportunity to discuss new ideas that could take the field forward.