IWSP7: Epilepsy Mechanisms, Models, Prediction and Control

Background

The international workshop on seizure prediction (IWSP) series is the leading international, cross-disciplinary conference focused on using a deeper scientific and medical understanding of epilepsy, in concert with advanced engineering techniques, to develop new diagnosis, treatment and intervention options for patients with epilepsy. IWSP7: Epilepsy Mechanisms, Models, Prediction and Control is the 7th in this series. The IWSP conference series was born out of the desire to predict epileptic seizures and has been organised by the International Seizure Prediction Group (ISPG). Since its inception the series has expanded its focus to cover the parallel and interacting study of (1) the basic mechanisms of epilepsy using neurophysiology and neuroimaging; (2) methods to predict, detect and control seizures; and (3) the development of computational models, and the integration of mechanistic models into prediction and control. These strands will help to utilize our understanding of physiology in conjunction with the limited physiological measurements available from epilepsy patients in order to develop improved, novel engineered epilepsy treatment solutions.

Per its name, IWSP7: Epilepsy Mechanisms, Models, Prediction and Control will focus especially on the engineering and science of epilepsy from basic mechanisms and imaging, to computational modeling for analysis and prediction, through to feedback control of epilepsy.

The ISPG group has held, to date, six international workshops approximately every 18 months, alternating between the U.S. and Europe. The workshops have addressed topics encompassing seizure prediction, seizure generation, and seizure control.

Previous conferences in this series:

• IWSP6 San Diego USA in November 2013
  organized by Bruce Gluckman, Bjoern Schelter, Catherine Schevon and Susan Arthurs

• IWSP5 Dresden, Germany in September 2011
  organized by Ronald Tetzlaff, Christian Elger, and Klaus Lehnertz
  ( conference book)

• IWSP4 Kansas City, MO, USA in June 2009
  organized by Ivan Osorio, Mark Frei, Susan Arthurs, and Hitten Zaveri
  (summary paper, debates paper, conference book)

• IWSP3 Freiburg, Germany in September 2007
  organized by Andreas Schulze-Bonhage, Jens Timmer, and Björn Schelter
  (conference book)

• IWSP2 Bethesda, MD, USA in April 2006
  organized by Leonidas Iasemidis, Chris Sackellares, Randall Stewart, and Joseph Pancrazio

• IWSP1 Bonn, Germany in April 2002
  organized by Klaus Lehnertz and Brian Litt
  (summary paper)

Talk Videos

A selection of videos of IWSP7 talks is now online on the IWSP7 YouTube Channel. Please share this link with your friends and colleagues.

Program

IWSP7 poster prizes were supported by Symbiotic Devices and were awarded to:

Best clinical science poster
• Louis Andre van Graan, University College London - "INTRINSIC CONNECTIVITY NETWORK–BASED QUANTIFICATION OF THE BOLD CHANGES ASSOCIATED WITH EPILEPTIFORM ACTIVITY".
Best basic science poster
• Yujiang Wang, Newcastle University - "MECHANISMS UNDERLYING DIFFERENT FOCAL SEIZURE ONSET PATTERNS".
Honourable Mentions
• Michelle Chong, University of Melbourne - "A MULTIPLE-MODEL BASED ESTIMATION ALGORITHM FOR NEURAL MASS MODELS OF EPILEPSY".
• Piyush Swami, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi - "AUTOMATED DETECTION OF EPILEPTIFORM SIGNATURES IN ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY".
• Vincent Adam and Joana Soldado Magraner, University College London - "PERFORMANCE OF SYNCHRONY AND SPECTRAL-BASED FEATURES IN EARLY SEIZURE DETECTION: EXPLORING FEATURE COMBINATIONS AND EFFECT OF LATENCY".
• Francois Laurent, Instituto Cajal - "FUNCTIONAL RESOLUTION OF LOCAL FIELD POTENTIALS IN THE RAT EPILEPTIC HIPPOCAMPUS".

The program for IWSP7: Epilepsy Mechanisms, Models, Prediction and Control addressed three key themes:

• Seizure prediction from short- to long-term recordings.
• Model based data assimilation for time series analysis, neuro-intervention and feedback control.
• Multi-modal neuroimaging and computational modelling to assess the spatial origin of seizures and the epileptic network at multiple scales.

The following traditional IWSP themes were also covered: automated seizure detection and prediction, seizure physiology mechanisms at multiple scales, high frequency oscillations, seizure control, epileptic networks, and computational modeling of epilepsy. In addition, there was an invited talk the on genetics and the individual specific nature of epilepsy.

Novel additions to the program included a mentoring session and a 'Split-groups: problems & solutions' session to help the ISPG community to better define key problems and how they can be solved.

Download the full program for IWSP7 (size 5.6 MB).

Is the above file too big? Try these files:

Download the program of talks and events for IWSP7 (size 43 KB).

Download the list of poster titles and numbers for IWSP7 (size 42 KB).

Download the venue map and layout for IWSP7 (size 2.1 MB).

At a glance, the first day on Monday August 3 was an educational day, giving people an opportunity to learn more about epilepsy from the perspectives of the different disciplines of science, engineering & medicine. On the first night there was a networking reception and the poster session. The next two days involved a full schedule of talks with the conference dinner on the night of Tuesday August 4. On Thursday August 6 there was an overlap day between IWSP7 and the Melbourne Epilepsy meeting (ME@MBC’15 – which brings together the best of Melbourne Epilepsy research). IWSP7 registrants also had the option to freely participate in ME@MBC’15 including its second day on the morning of Friday August 7. The list of invited speakers is given below.

Of additional note, two half-day long Educational Day Tutorials occurred on Monday August 3 of the educational day in parallel with the educational day talks as described in the program. These tutorials were:

• 0830-1200 Monday August 3 – The Virtual Brain Tutorial – Timothée Proix, Paula Sanz-Leon.
• 1300-1730 Monday August 3 – IEEG Database Tutorial – Brian Litt, Hoameng Ung, Lolith Kini, Ankit Khambhati.

These tutorials were included in the conference fee but spaces were limited to 30 people per tutorial, therefore people were required to email organizingcommittee@iwsp7.org in order to register their interest. People were also required to bring their own laptop to the tutorials in order to participate. Once people signed up for the tutorials they were given instructions on what software or data to install on their laptops before the tutorials in order to be ready on the day of the tutorials. For more information, the abstracts for these tutorials can be downloaded here..

Invited Speakers

Catalina Alvarado-Rojas, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia (Cross-frequency coupling and seizure prediction)
Samuel Berkovic, University of Melbourne, Australia (Genetics and individual-specific nature of epilepsy)
Sydney Cash, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA (Cortical physiology and epilepsy)
Antonio Dourado, University of Coimbra, Portugal (Seizure Prediction and the EPILEPSIAE project)
Bin He, University of Minnesota, USA (EEG-based imaging to localise seizure and high frequency activity)
Louis Lemieux, University College London, UK (Multi-modal imaging of human epileptic zone and networks)
Liset Menendez de la Prida, Instituto Cajal - CSIC, Spain (Sources of functional heterogeneity in the cellular activity of hippocampal microcircuits in temporal lobe epilepsy)
Martha Morrell, Stanford University, Neuropace, USA (Responsive seizure control and its clinical implications)
Philippe Ryvlin, Lyon University, France (Vagal nerve stimulation and seizure prediction)
Bjoern Schelter, University of Aberdeen, UK (Recent advances in data-based modelling and their role in epilepsy research)
Steven Schiff, Penn State University, USA (Unification of spikes, seizures and spreading depression)
Piotr Suffczynski, University of Warsaw, Poland (Modelling of neuronal and ionic dynamics during ictogenesis)
John Terry, University of Exeter, UK (Modelling multiscale brain networks: seizure initiation, evolution and prediction)
Gregory Worrell, Mayo Clinic, USA (Forecasting epileptic seizures in dogs)

Seizure Prediction Contest

An intracranial EEG data Seizure Prediction Contest is being planned for the future. Subscribe below to register your interest.

Contact/Subscribe

Contact Details

Email: organizingcommittee@iwsp7.org

Mail: IWSP7, c/o Levin Kuhlmann, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3010, Australia

Phone: +61 4 1255 2283

Fax: +61 3 8344 7412