Helping to better predict and prevent epileptic seizures is the goal of a device developed by Ivan Osorio of the KU School of Medicine. Epilepsy is one of the most debilitating neurological disorders because people don't know when their seizures will occur.

Seizures, the main symptom of epilepsy, cause more than 40,000 deaths annually in the United States, said Osorio, a professor in the neurology department.

Osorio and Mark Frei of Flint Hills Scientific LLC, Lawrence, developed an implantable electrotherapy device to sense and prevent impending seizures. The device is designed to return the brain to its normal electrical functioning before a seizure spreads. With support from the National Institutes of Health and Medtronic Inc., Osorio and Frei conducted the world's first study to successfully test the effectiveness and safety of automated seizure blockage using alternating high-frequency currents in humans.

"Seizures in the brain are similar to power surges in electrical circuits," Osorio said.

Electrical stimulation of the brain for epilepsy treatment is based on passing multiple pulses of alternating current (AC) or charge-balanced pulses. Osorio and colleagues recently submitted a proposal to investigate the effectiveness of using single-pulse direct current (DC) instead.

The results of Osorio and Frei's groundbreaking study recently were published in Annals of Neurology.

"The exciting thing about our research is that we might be able to automatically control seizures," Osorio said. "The device may annihilate the abnormal electrical flow by pushing it into a so-called 'black hole' or 'null space' that exists in the oscillating structures in the brain."

Osorio's pioneering research recently earned him a $75,000 grant from the Epilepsy Research Foundation. The grant will be used to obtain preliminary data about the safety and efficacy of using DC stimulation in animals, Osorio said.