28 An alternate approach is to predict and prevent seizures with invasive recording and stimulation techniques.29 Seizure prediction is a field of great interest in the clinical and basic neuroscience communities. This is not only because of its potential clinical application in warning and therapeutic antiepilcptic devices, but also for its promise of increasing our understanding of the mechanisms underlying epilepsy and seizure generation. Mechanisms of cognitive deficits Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical associated with epilepsy Epilepsy is frequently associated with cognitive deficits that may be due to an a-priori brain pathology, plastic changes induced by the epilepsy, adverse effects of drug treatment, or epilepsy

surgery. The prevalence and clinical importance of cognitive deficits has triggered intense research activity in this field, in PCI-34051 supplier particular concerning

preand postsurgical memory and language impairments. However, epilepsy and the employed invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures also provide neuroscientists with a unique and unprecedented opportunity to study the neurophysiological basis Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of cognition and emotions in vivo. The specific techniques that can be used for such clinical and cognitive analyses are, for instance, recordings from Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical implanted depth electrodes, which provide a high temporal resolution of activity in the cortex or deeper brain structures, in particular the hippocampus.30-32 In addition to recording activity from collective neuronal behavior, single unit activity from temporal lobe neurons can Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical be analyzed, thereby enabling the analysis of cognitive functions at the single cell level.33 Complementing these techniques, functional imaging techniques offer high spatial resolution but less precise temporal information about neuronal activity. They also permit functional Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical analysis of

areas in which electrode placement is clinically unnecessary, and allow the analysis of structural and functional changes of connectivity. The combination of these techniques is of considerable interest, primarily because they are complementary with regard to spatial and temporal resolution. It will therefore constitute a fundamental advance to acquire combined (ic, simultaneous) intracranial electroencephalogram (EEG)/single unit and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRT) data during GBA3 cognitive tasks. While this will also contribute significantly to resolving the current debate about the neuronal correlate of fMRI signals in humans, combining these technologies will enable the investigation of the “brain at work” at an unprecedented degree of accuracy. A clinical demand also exists for such combined recordings (ie, the detection of seizure foci with spike-triggered fMRI). A simultaneous recording of intracranial EEG/single units and fMRI is in principle possible. Several companies are currently performing safety evaluations with pending applications for approval of their intracranial electrodes for use within fMRI scanners.