Debugging the Brain--BME Associate Professor David Mogul's Work Focuses on the Hippocampus

A seizure in the brain may begin as a sort of premonition, a constellation of symptoms often referred to as an aura. Unusual tastes or smells, tingling sensations, or racing thoughts sometimes accompany feelings of gathering dread, nausea, or lightheadedness. A few seconds to a few hours after such warning signs, a broad range of unpleasant and debilitating effects associated with a seizure may follow, including temporary deafness, tremors or convulsions, and loss of consciousness. Alternatively, seizures may arise with no apparent warning at all. The causes of epilepsy, a condition characterized by repeated seizure activity, are varied, and not all are well understood. More than 20 percent of epilepsy patients have difficulty controlling seizures with standard drug treatments.

IIT Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering David Mogul is investigating new means of limiting or alleviating seizures through manipulation of the brain's electrical activity. Much of Mogul's present research focuses on the electrophysiology of partial epileptic seizures, those arising at a single site or within a few limited foci within the brain.