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Pioneering epilepsy device developed in the North East
The Journal
|April 30, 2025
GROUND-BREAKING procedure at a North East hospital has seen surgeons become the first in the UK to implant a new “pacemaker for the brain” to treat epilepsy.
A team at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary, led by Tyneside neurosurgeon Chris Cowie, carried out the surgery to attach the device which uses electrodes to stimulate the brain and mitigate the impact of seizures to a patient's skull.
The EASEE (Epicranial Application of Stimulation Electrodes for Epilepsy) device sits directly over the area of their brain impacted by their epilepsy.
EASEE uses two methods to treat the debilitating condition which can cause life-threatening seizures.
It uses “direct-like-stimulation” with the aim of reducing “overactive neurons”, while “high frequency stimulation” uses pulses to attempt to prevent upcoming seizures.
The procedure could potentially provide a solution for patients with epilepsy which affects just one part of their brain, which would have been too dangerous to remove.
This story is from the April 30, 2025 edition of The Journal.
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