New Device to Control Seizures Proving Effective for First Patient

Thirty days after neurologists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham implanted a neurotransmitter inside a young woman’s brain to control her seizures, she is reporting dramatic improvement. After suffering from seizures for 10 years, she became the first patient in the Southeast to receive the new device since its approval by the FDA last year. “It is designed to record a patient’s specific brain activity and recognize patterns that are associated with seizures,” said the university’s associate professor in the department of neurosurgery. “The RNS system then delivers stimulation in order to help modulate and control the seizures.” Prior to receiving the RNS system, the patient experienced multiple semi-partial seizures every day, lasting anywhere from 10 seconds to more than a minute, causing her to lose all ability to function. The RNS system is meant for patients who have severe seizures but do not respond to medications and are not candidates for surgery due to the location of their seizure onset in a sensitive part of the brain. It is also only meant for patients whose seizure onset can be traced to just one or two locations in the brain. To read more about this, click here.