Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Epileptogenesis

Absence epilepsy is a form of pediatric epilepsy which causes seizures with brief lapses in awareness. Electron microscopy results in a murine model of absence epilepsy support the hypothesis that maladaptive myelination plays a role in disease progression. To enable whole-brain, longitudinal assessment of white matter changes, we propose to develop in vivo quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods on a preclinical MRI including validation against electron microscopy and tissue clearing histology. We anticipate that the proposed MRI technology will reveal the hypothesized interplay between myelination and seizure activity that is critical to the development and assessment of new treatments.