Application of a Bioelectronic-electroporation Lesion Ablation to target Temporal lobe Epilepsy – ABLATE

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by spontaneous and recurrent seizures. This disease is widespread throughout the world but in some cases remains very difficult to treat. It is recognized that 30% of patients are drug-resistant, so in many cases the only possible approach is surgical resection of the epileptic focus. Such surgery is invasive and carries risks, including memory problems and loss of cognitive function.
An alternative approach is radiofrequency (RF) ablation, which involves the removal of a small portion of the brain tissue that is thought to be an epileptic focus. This method is less invasive than surgery, but it has disadvantages, such as bleeding, increased temperature of brain tissue and difficulties positioning the electrode. To solve these problems, we propose to use a new technique called irreversible electroporation (IRE) whose main advantage is to not cause overheating of tissue that can lead to cell death. In addition, by using the flexible organic electrodes, it is possible to minimize the damage caused by the penetration of the electrodes into the brain tissue and all the adverse reactions associated therewith. Therefore, we propose to prototype the IRE ablation to treat focal-onset MTLE in rodents, specifically the lesions of the hippocampus most closely related to cases in patients.