RESIDENT National Institute of Neurology, Distrito Federal, Mexico
This abstract has been invited to present during the Better Patient Outcomes through Diversity Platform poster session
Rationale: Cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation (c-tDCS) is a neuromodulation procedure that has revealed a capacity to suppress ongoing seizures in animal epilepsy models. However, whether c-tDCS, applied during the ictal state, can suppress seizures in humans has not been tested. We, therefore, examined the acute anti-seizure consequence of c-tDCS in patients with clinical refractory epilepsy where c-tDCS was applied during a seizure. Methods: Patients enrolled in a clinical trial of anti-epileptic c-tDCS (2 mA x 30 min x 10 days) were monitored with simultaneous EEG. Seizure durations in those patients during treatment were compared with the patient’s pre-treatment seizures recorded on video-EEG. Results: Three patients had six tonic seizures during c-tDCS. The mean duration of in-session seizures was shorter (-58%, mean 7.8 vs. 13.5 seconds) when compared with video-EEG baseline spontaneous self- resolved seizures without side effects. At two months of follow-up the patients had a mean decrease of 69% (50-92%) in the number of seizures. Figure 1.Blox-plot summarizing the seizure durations of three pediatric patients with clinical matched type seizures under c-TDCS (n=6) and spontaneous seizures video-EEG recording (n=6). Figure 4 Patient No. 2. A) six-year-old boy with a tonic trunk flexion with right arm extension during the 9th session at 3’24’’ of cathodal tDCS with EEG simultaneously recorded showing an ictal pattern characterized by mixed high frequencies and polyspike and delta/theta brain waves lasting six seconds (*Electro-clinical seizure) in the spectrogram. B) Matched ictal events captured by video-EEG recording with generalized fast frequency polyspikes pattern lasting nine seconds. Filters: 0.3-70Hz. Notch: 60 Hz. Sensitivity 7µV/mm. Conclusions: In this pilot study, c-tDCS did not exacerbate (and may have shortened) seizure duration and decreased the mean number of seizures. Funding: Please list any funding that was received in support of this abstract.: None
