Brain implant cuts seizures

A brain implant designed to detect and block the onset of seizures can significantly reduce their frequency in people with difficult-to-treat epilepsy, according to results revealed on Monday. Neuropace, a startup in Mountain View, CA, that developed the device, plans to seek regulatory approval for it next year. "It sounds extremely promising," says Jaimie Henderson, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University who is not involved with Neuropace or with the clinical trials. "The demonstration that a system like this can be effective is a big step forward." Some 30 to 50 percent of epilepsy patients cannot adequately control their seizures with medication, a figure that amounts to hundreds of thousands of patients in the United States. Some resort to surgery, in which the part of the brain where the seizure originates is removed. But not everyone has this option--the abnormal activity may start in brain areas responsible for language or vision and thus cannot be surgically destroyed without serious consequences.