Abstracts

Local brain cooling using an implantable cooling system is an attractive prophylactic technique for seizures since it has a potential to be an alternative to a surgical resection of the epileptogenic foci. In this report, we applied the newly devised local brain cooling system to intractable epilepsy in humans., We utilized a Peltier chip as the cooling device and therefore applied this cooling device to two patients with medically intractable epilepsy. During surgery, cooling was performed for two minutes in the human cortex where the epileptiform discharges (EDs) were recorded and therefore it had to be resected. Electrocorticograms and the temperature just beneath the cooling site were recorded before and during cooling. Changes of EDs between before and during cooling were quantitatively analyzed., The first case was a 12-year-old girl with temporal lobe epilepsy, while the second case was a 2-year-old boy with parietal lobe epilepsy caused by tuberous sclerosis. In both cases, EDs diminished during the cooling process when the temperature of the brain surface reached less than 25[deg]C., This is the first report demonstrating the effectiveness of the cooling device using a Peltier chip for the treatment of human epilepsy. Owing to recent advances in the precision machinery industry, an implantable local cooling system in humans is therefore expected to become a reality in the near future.,