The principal investigator proposes to expand his research program in Applied Mathematics into the area of Neuroscience. He will spend the 2007-2008 academic year at the Indiana University Medical School and the summer of 2008 at Pennsylvania State University.
At the Indiana University Medical School, the PI will participate in both clinical and research activities under the guidance of Drs. Worth, Salanova and Kubek. He will undertake a study of EEG analysis in epileptic patients with Drs. Worth and Salanova. He will observe implantation of the NeuroPace Responsive Neurostimulator and subdural grid electrodes in patients and gain experience in the visual analysis and interpretation of the EEG data. He will then apply wavelet-based and other signal processing techniques to analyze the EEG signals in order to obtain additional information that cannot be discerned from a visual reading of the EEGs. He will also attend the weekly presurgical meetings with Drs. Worth and Salanova and medical residents on case studies of seizure EEGs. These interactions in a clinical environment will strengthen and reinforce the PI's understanding of EEG data analysis. In Dr. Kubek's laboratory, the PI will work on the kindled rat seizure model and perform wavelet analysis of the recorded EEG signals. He will work closely with an MD-PhD student on various aspects of the kindling experiments including EEG data acquisition and microarray gene expression techniques. The PI will spend the summer of 2008 with Dr. Schiff in his laboratory at the Center for Neural Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. There he will work on computational aspects of the development of brain-computer interfaces for controlling seizures in rodent epilepsy models and epileptic patients.
The experience gained from this project will enable the PI to develop his research in the area of computational neuroscience. He will be in a unique position to interact and collaborate with neurophysiologists, neurologists and other biomedical scientists and apply his knowledge and skills of signal processing techniques to medically important problems of epilepsy and seizure.
