Epilepsy

Unique contributions and highlights

Research project 1: we aim to understand autoimmunity that relates to the central nervous system. We are investigating the detection of neuronal surface autoantibodies in a wide spectrum of brain disorders including epilepsy. This will lead to new diagnostic criteria in the future as well. Patients that are currently misdiagnosed in the clinic due to the unawareness of the correlation between disease and these autoantibodies will benefit directly from our study.

Research project 2: Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is a common type of focal epilepsy that becomes drug refractory in about 1/3 of patients.  Surgical treatment of these patients open the rare opportunity to study freshly obtained human brain specimen.  Research on the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology aims to improve diagnostics and aid the development of novel therapies.  At the cellular level, we aim to develop a 3D brain organoid model (brain-on-a-chip) and at the molecular level, the focus is on epigenetic mechanisms.