Epilepsy Paid Clinical Trials in Texas

SLC13A5 deficiency (Citrate Transporter Disorder, EIEE 25) is a rare genetic disorder with neurodevelopmental delays and seizure onset in the first few days of life. This natural history study is designed to address the lack of understanding of disease progression. Additionally it will identify clinical and biomarker endpoints for use in future clinical trials. Read Less

The goal is to develop methodology to monitor flux in the citric acid cycle in brain via 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy at 7 Tesla. Read Less

The goal of this study is to learn about the effects of scopolamine (an anticholinergic drug) on areas of the brain involved in memory, and changes it may have on brain activity. The investigators will do this by testing epileptic patients who are already undergoing intracranial surgery for seizure monitoring, and measuring the activity from the brain areas being assessed. The main questions it aims to answer are 1) whether scopolamine changes memory activity solely at encoding (the time when the person perceives and determines to remember an item or event) as has previously been found, or if it also can selectively impact retrieval (when the item or event which has been processed is recalled or remembered), and 2) what the nature of the brain activity changes is. Participants will complete two treatment arms. One of these will be with the drug, and the other will be with a saline solution, so that the participants are unaware which session the actual drug has been received. Patients will complete a verbal and/or spatial task each of the two days. An anesthesiologist will administer either the drug or the saline at a critical point which addresses both of the research questions. Researchers will compare the brain activity between the two treatment arms to determine what brain activity changes, and at what time point during memory formation. Read Less

This trial is a Phase II randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled multi-site study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of early sirolimus to prevent or delay seizure onset in TSC infants. This study is supported by research funding from the Office of Orphan Products Division (OOPD) of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Read Less

The purpose of this study is to compare organization of normal brain function as detected using Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in normal subjects as opposed to patients with epilepsy or brain tumors, to ascribe precise anatomic labels (including Brodmann Areas) and functional significance to each region involved in cognitive processes as detected by cortical stimulation mapping (CSM) in patients with implanted subdural electrodes (SDE) or depth (sEEG) electrodes, to describe the locations of these regions in Talairach space, for a population of patients without overt structural abnormalities in these regions, to generate a spatial probability map of locations of cortical regions "essential" for these processes, to compare the loci of "crucial" language, visual, motor and cognitive sites as determined by CSM with the loci determined by a battery of tasks using fMRI for each individual and to use these data in patients undergoing intracranial electro-corticographyto determine the loci of essential, involved and uninvolved brain areas, and use sophisticated mathematical analyses of these intracranial recordings to study information flow between these areas. Read Less

The overall goal of this study is to map the spatiotemporal dynamics of social affective processing and to examine selective modulation of these dynamics in humans undergoing invasive intracranial monitoring for treatment-resistant epilepsy and depression. Pursuing this signal from a novel platform with invasive intracranial recording electrodes provides much-needed spatial and temporal resolution to characterize the neural dynamics of socio-affective processing. The investigators will leverage first-in-human intracranial neural recording opportunities created by a novel therapeutic platform termed "stereotactic electroencephalography-informed deep brain stimulation" (stereo-EEG-informed DBS), as well as the powerful platform of intracranial stereotactic recording and stimulation in patients undergoing epilepsy surgical evaluation at Baylor College of Medicine. The sEEG-informed DBS trial provides unique opportunities for intracranial recording of affect-relevant network regions in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Recordings in identical regions in epilepsy patients who themselves often demonstrate mild-moderate depressive symptoms will provide a wide dynamic range across the symptom spectrum. To provide critical data on the spatiotemporal dynamics of socio-affective processing the investigators will leverage these two human intracranial recording and stimulation cohorts to study the precise structural, functional, and causal properties of the affective salience network. Greater understanding of the social processing circuitry mediated by the affective salience network may be used to drive therapeutic innovation, pioneering a new paradigm that improves socio-emotional function across a wide variety of neuropsychiatric conditions. The results from this proposal have the potential to improve the lives of patients with dysfunction in social affective processing, with implications for a wide range of neuropsychiatric diseases. Read Less

Humans have a remarkable ability to flexibly interact with the environment. A compelling demonstration of this cognitive flexibility is human's ability to respond correctly to novel contextual situations on the first attempt, without prior rehearsal. The investigators refer to this ability as 'ad hoc self-programming': 'ad hoc' because these new behavioral repertoires are cobbled together on the fly, based on immediate demand, and then discarded when no longer necessary; 'self-programming' because the brain has to configure itself appropriately based on task demands and some combination of prior experience and/or instruction. The overall goal of our research effort is to understand the neurophysiological and computational basis for ad hoc self-programmed behavior. The previous U01 project (NS 108923) focused on how these programs of action are initially created. The results thus far have revealed tantalizing notions of how the brain represents these programs and navigates through the programs. In this proposal, therefore, the investigators focus on the question of how these mental programs are executed. Based on the preliminary findings and critical conceptual work, the investigators propose that the medial temporal lobe (MTL) and ventral prefrontal cortex (vPFC) creates representations of the critical elements of these mental programs, including concepts such as 'rules' and 'locations', to allow for effective navigation through the algorithm. These data suggest the existence of an 'algorithmic state space' represented in medial temporal and prefrontal regions. This proposal aims to understand the neurophysiological underpinnings of this algorithmic state space in humans. By studying humans, the investigators will profit from our species' powerful capacity for generalization to understand how such state spaces are constructed. The investigators therefore leverage the unique opportunities available in human neuroscience research to record from single cells and population-level signals, as well as to use intracranial stimulation for causal testing, to address this challenging problem. In Aim 1 the investigators study the basic representations of algorithmic state space using a novel behavioral task that requires the immediate formation of unique plans of action. Aim 2 directly compares representations of algorithmic state space to that of physical space by juxtaposing balanced versions of spatial and algorithmic tasks in a virtual reality (VR) environment. Finally, in Aim 3, the investigators test hypotheses regarding interactions between vPFC and MTL using intracranial stimulation. Read Less

The purpose of this study is to determine effects of Acupuncture on a Patient's mood and cognition,evaluate changes in clinically-reported seizure frequency and severity and analyze effects of Acupuncture on electrographic epileptiform activity stored by the RNS System Read Less

The purpose of this study is to map the acute, short-term cortical evoked responses to thalamic electrical stimulation in persons with intractable epilepsy Read Less

To determine the utility of diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging in the preoperative workup of children with intractable epilepsy referred for surgery. Read Less

A prospective non-invasive data/image collection for evaluation of the performance of the Advanced Scanners 3D scanner during brain surgery. The primary objective is to evaluate the performance of the scanner in determining the brain surface shape over multiple time points during craniotomies (surgical opening into the skull), and present those shapes in full color, with high resolution in all three coordinates of 3D space. A secondary objective is to use the measurements to determine brain shift as a function of time. Read Less