A multi-modal functional brain sensor (Optrodes)

Overview

Epilepsy, marked by recurring epileptic seizures, affects ~1% of the population worldwide. In cases where medication fails, identifying the seizure-causing (epileptogenic) focal volume in the patient’s brain is required in order to offer alternative treatments. Although various advanced techniques are used to that end (e.g., MRI, PET, MEG, and capture of seizures using combined video and EEG monitoring), the identification of epileptogenic foci often fails, resulting in a variable 5-year seizure freedom rate (15-85%) of non-pharmacological treatments. There is a need in an innovative system that will improve the localization and characterization of epileptic foci.

Our solution

The invention is a hybrid system that addresses the current limited ability to localize epileptogenic foci and characterize neuro-vascular coupling during ictal, preictal and interictal periods.  Co-called “optrodes” (integrating both electrodes and optodes into one element) are inserted into the brain and skull of patients with epilepsy, to directly measure the brain vasculature, electrical activity and impedance (EIT), enabling better localization of ictal and interictal epileptic activities while substantially reducing motion artifacts and contamination from extracerebral factors. This is complemented by multi-modal software that can co-register the signals from the optrodes with whole-brain imaging.

Non Hadassah Co-onventors

Michal Balberg, PhD, Holon Institute of Technology

Applications

Drug-resistant epilepsy diagnostics

IP

Priority application filed

Market Potential

Up to 1/3 of epilepsy patients are drug resistant – 1M in USA. All drug resistant cases (patients) are relevant for our mapping solution. Current mapping direct costs $5-6K USD per case. 50K new drug resistant admitted per year. Total Addressable Market (TAM) = CASES X COST = $5-6B (in total); $300M annually (US market)