The proposed application will provide the applicant with the expertise required to establish a research career dedicated to characterizing the neurobiological basis of neurobehavioral co-morbidity in pediatric epilepsy. The candidate is a child neurologist who is proposing to obtain cross-disciplinary training from a developmental neuroscientist mentor, a panel of expert consultants in epilepsy, neuroimaging, psychiatry, neuropsychology and didactic sessions. We propose to use well-established neuroscience methods to investigate the neurobiological basis of neurobehavioral outcome in epilepsy. To characterize neurobehavioral status of children with complex partial seizures, benign focal epilepsy of childhood and healthy controls will be assessed using well-characterized behavioral tasks. To determine the neurobiological basis of neurobehavioral status a subgroup of subjects will also perform functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies. We hypothesize that cognitive and psychiatric impairment in children with complex partial seizures will be accompanied by a distinct change in brain activation patterns and increased variability in white matter integrity compared to control groups. These results will be crucial for developing a neurobiological model of neurobehavioral dysfunction in epilepsy that can inform treatment. This training will enable the candidate to obtain unique cross-disciplinary training using neuroimaging to link child psychiatry with neurology.
| Triplett, Regina L; Velanova, Katerina; Luna, Beatriz et al. (2014) Investigating inhibitory control in children with epilepsy: an fMRI study. Epilepsia 55:1667-76 |
| Asato, Miya R; Nawarawong, Natalie; Hermann, Bruce et al. (2011) Deficits in oculomotor performance in pediatric epilepsy. Epilepsia 52:377-85 |
| Asato, M R; Terwilliger, R; Woo, J et al. (2010) White matter development in adolescence: a DTI study. Cereb Cortex 20:2122-31 |
