Presidential Symposium: Technology and Human Investigation in Epilepsy 9:00 a.m.‐11:30 a.m.

Dennis Spencer 
 Dept of Neurosurgery, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CTSummary: Advances in clinical care for our patients with epilepsy depends on creative problem solving in research.,which frequently comes only when technology provides exactly the right tool for the solution. Our presidential symposium this year highlights four fields in neuroengineering that have already changed how we diagnose and treat patients but promise to further revolutionize not only our understanding of disease mechanisms but also normal brain function. Hoby Heatherington will describe why more powerful high field strength MR is the key to unlocking the spectroscopic chemical analysis of the normal and metabolically deranged brain with epilepsy. Karl Deisseroth utilizes optical and stem‐cell based technology for noninvasive imaging and control of brain circuitry. He will describe how this technology probes normal neural circuit dynamics and what it may promise in the treatment of epilepsy and other neurological disorders. Itzak Fried has coupled the technology of microelectrode recordings of human hippocampal ictal events to cognitive challenges that have provided rare insights into how the human hippocampus functions under normal conditions and the stress of epileptogenesis. Finally David Roberts will guide us through the history and the future of how the computer, mathematics and imaging has revolutionized the neurosurgeon's stereotactic approach to intracranial electrophysiological diagnosis and precise delivery of future therapies.