Revolutionary Brain-Scan Method For Seeing Seizures More Clearly

KOCHI:

Doctors at Amrita Hospital have developed and patented a new way of analysing brain scans that help them pinpoint where seizures start, using patient’s own brain data.The method has been scientifically validated and could improve surgical outcomes for people with difficult-to-treat epilepsy.

For most people with epilepsy, medicines are enough to control seizures. But for nearly 30% patients, seizures continue despite the best available drugs. This condition—known as drug-resistant epilepsy—can severely affect education, employment, independence, and quality of life. Even affecting pregnancy and the cognitive outcomes of children born to women with epilepsy. For many of these patients, surgery offers the best chance of becoming seizure-free. The success of surgery, however, depends on one critical step: accurately identifying the exact area of the brain where seizures begin. If that region is not correctly located, surgery may fail or expose patients to unnecessary risks.

Doctors often rely on a specialised scan called FDG-PET, especially when an MRI scan of the brain fails to show the seizure focus. An FDG-PET scan shows how different parts of the brain use energy. The seizure focus usually appears less active on these scans.
However, interpreting PET scans visually can be subjective, and subtle abnormalities are easily missed—particularly in patients whose MRI scans appear normal. To address this challenge, clinicians and researchers have developed a new, patient-specific method of analysing PET scans. Instead of comparing a patient’s scan with scans from healthy individuals—a process that is costly and often impractical—the method compares the left and right sides of the patient’s own brain after carefully aligning it using MRI.

 This approach highlights small but meaningful differences in brain activity that may indicate where seizures originate.The technique, known as PASCOM (PET Asymmetry after Anatomical Symmetrization Coregistered to MRI), has been clinically validated and published in the prestigious Journal of Neurosurgery.

In the study, among patients who became seizure-free after surgery, the PASCOM method improved accuracy and consistency in identifying the seizure focus compared with conventional visual analysis. Recognising its novelty and clinical importance, the technology has been patented in both India and the United States. The patent supports standardisation and responsible adoption, helping ensure that the method can be reliably implemented across healthcare systems.

“Beyond its technical contribution, the work has broader implications. By avoiding dependence on expensive or invasive methods, this approach may help make advanced epilepsy surgery planning more accessible, especially for hospitals in resource-constrained settings,” said Dr. Siby Gopinath, Professor and Head of the Amrita Advanced Centre for Epilepsy.