EPILEPSY TREATMENT SIDE EFFECT: NEW INSIGHTS ABOUT THE BRAIN

Though Genette Hofmann is still using her brain, last month she donated a bit of it — to science.

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Hofmann needed the surgery — her Seattle surgeon was looking deep into her brain, where he found the trigger for the epileptic seizures that had disrupted her life for 30 years. But to get there, he teased out a bit of healthy tissue the size of a lima bean, and with her blessing quickly sent it to some researchers, who were eager to study brain cells while they were still alive.

That’s how Hofmann joined a long line of epilepsy patients who’ve helped scientists reveal basic secrets of the brain — knowledge that could pay off in better ways to measure consciousness in brain-injury patients and new treatments for a variety of diseases.

Research volunteers such as Ruth Nall, who made a different kind of contribution in a California hospital room, reading sentences aloud as a network of surgically implanted sensors kept close track of how her brain worked.

Since she was going to have electrodes implanted anyway, she reasoned, why not help out?

“Plus,” she added, “I’d have visitors.”

Epilepsy disrupts the brain’s electrical activity, producing recurrent seizures that involve strange sensations, behaviors, emotions and, sometimes, loss of consciousness. Most people with epilepsy don’t need surgery and can control seizures with medications. But when surgery is necessary, research scientists can ask to piggyback on the procedures for a rare chance to study the brain directly.

For decades, studies of epilepsy patients have revealed the secrets of the brain, like how the two halves operate differently. And research with “H.M.,” a now-deceased Connecticut man who’s been called the most famous patient in the history of neuroscience, revealed key insights into how memory works.