Hopkins Symposium

Synopsis:

How are artificial intelligence, big data, and minimally invasive technologies changing the way we diagnose and treat children with drug-resistant epilepsies?

In this Grand Round, we will highlight the use of artificial intelligence in the detection of subtle lesions causing epilepsy, the selection of antiseizure medications, and the prediction of individual surgical outcomes. We will discuss the way large open-source datasets allow us to address previously unanswerable research questions whilst fostering cross-disciplinary collaborations. Finally, we will deliberate whether emerging minimally invasive technologies in epilepsy surgery are overhyped, or truly advancing patient outcomes.

Speaker:

Dr Emma Macdonald-Laurs is a paediatric epileptologist and neurologist at The Royal Children’s Hospital, and a Clinician-Scientist Fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Dr Macdonald-Laurs interests include epilepsy surgery, advanced neuroimaging and EEG analysis, and automated intelligence. She has recently submitted her PhD which examined bottom-of-sulcus dysplasia, a tiny brain lesion which causes epilepsy in children amenable to surgical correction. Her research is already directly translating into precision diagnosis, with early detection of MRI-negative lesions using automated (AI) detection methods, followed by precision surgery. Her ongoing work seeks to develop and implement tools to detect subtle brain lesions causing epilepsy and to better understand the brain network and cognitive changes associated with uncontrolled seizures.