Epilepsy

• Centers and Programs
• Labs
• Clinical Trials

Division Chief: Kathryn Davis, MD, MSTR

Link to Penn Medicine Website - Comprehensive Epilepsy Center 

The Penn Epilepsy Center is recognized as the leading comprehensive epilepsy program in the region and among the top in the nation. Our multidisciplinary team delivers personalized care, incorporating the latest advancements in epilepsy treatment, including cutting-edge medication trials, innovative brain imaging techniques exclusive to Penn for seizure mapping, and advanced EEG analysis.

We provide specialized programs tailored to the unique needs of our patients, including a transition program for pediatric and young adult patients entering adult care, an epilepsy neurogenetics clinic, and a reproductive health clinic focused on epilepsy-related concerns.

Our state-of-the-art epilepsy surgery program is highly collaborative, involving experts in epileptology, functional neurosurgery, neuroradiology, nuclear medicine, and neuropsychology. We perform more than 125 surgical procedures annually, offering a full spectrum of surgical options such as minimally invasive laser ablation, neuromodulation, and resective surgery. Our team is also at the forefront of developing and piloting next-generation epilepsy therapies.

Centers and Programs

• Penn Epilepsy Center (internal)
• Center for Neuroengineering and Therapeutics (CN&T)

Labs

• Davis Lab - Dr. Davis’ research centers around utilizing both the advancing fields of invasive neurophysiology and neuroimaging to better localize epileptic networks in medication refractory epilepsy patients. She hopes that improving localization will enable epileptologists to better localize epileptic networks and assign individual patients to the most efficacious therapy, for example, seizure control devices, resective surgery, or continued medical management.
• Jensen Lab - The major focus of my laboratory is on developing new age-specific therapies for epilepsy and its comorbidities. We specifically focus on forms of epilepsy that affect the infant and early childhood brain, and have extensive expertise in investigations of human tissue as well as rat and mouse models of early life epilepsy. Our interests have been on hypoxic/ischemic injury and seizures in the perinatal and young postnatal brain. My lab has published expertise in cellular and regional alterations in synaptic proteins and signaling pathways using whole animal, human tissue, and in vitro brain slices and cell cultures. Almost 20 years ago we showed that hypoxia can induce seizures in the neonatal brain and this increased network excitability in adulthood; over the years we have worked to show that AMPARs are involved in this epileptogenesis and that spontaneous seizures are increased in adulthood, confirming this as a model of epileptogenesis
• Litt Lab - The Litt laboratory translates NeuroEngineering research directly into patient care. We collaborate broadly across disciplines to invent, develop and test new technologies and apply them to basic and clinical research. While epilepsy is the lab’s core focus, our multidisciplinary efforts span a variety of scientific and clinical areas, including brain-machine interfaces, functional neurosurgery, network and computational neuroscience, movement disorders, intra-operative and ICU monitoring, and a broad array of “brain network” disorders.
• Vitale Lab - The Vitale Lab focuses on creating novel technologies to study, monitor and treat neurological and neuromuscular disorders such as epilepsy, Parkinson's, nerve injury, and chronic pain. Their research focuses on engineering the electrochemical, mechanical and optical properties of nanostructured materials and integrating them in soft, multimodal bioelectronic interfaces that can seamlessly monitor and modulate the nervous system at high spatio-temporal resolution and at multiple scales, from individual cells to large-scale circuits.
• Conrad Lab - Dr. Conrad's research focuses on using quantitative EEG analysis to improve our understanding and treatment of epilepsy, spanning early diagnosis and classification to improved surgical treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy
• Ellis Lab - Dr. Ellis's research is focused on the genetic basis of epilepsy. He is particularly interested in the discovery of genes that cause epilepsy; the heritability of epilepsy within families; and the use of genetics to improve the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. An additional focus is data mining and natural language processing on electronic health records to improve research and clinical care in epilepsy.
• Talos Lab - Delia Talos’ research focuses on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of epilepsy and its associated neuropsychiatric co-morbidities, with a particular emphasis on genetic, immunological and neurodegenerative processes. The laboratory uses both human brain samples and translational mouse models to study and treat genetic epilepsies such as Tuberous Sclerosis Complex and CDKL5 deficiency disorder, as well as more common forms of epilepsy, caused by status epilepticus, traumatic brain injury and neurodegenerative brain disorders.
• Gelfand - The Gelfand Clinical Research Lab designs and conducts clinic-based and population-based observational studies and interventional and translational clinical trials in common and rare skin diseases. MichaelGelfand and his team focus on pharmacoepidemiology, patient-centered outcomes and effectiveness research, psychometrics and instrument/diagnostic test development, and human translational studies aimed at the development of novel treatment approaches and further understanding of disease pathogenesis.  A major goal of the Gelfand Clinical Research Program is to improve psoriasis patient outcomes in the skin and joints, while lowering the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mortality.

 

Clinical Trials

The Penn Epilepsy Center conducts clinical trials to advance epilepsy care across multiple areas, including:

• New antiseizure medications that may offer better seizure control and fewer side effects
• Rescue therapies for rapid intervention during seizure emergencies
• Diagnostic devices to improve seizure detection and monitoring
• Device-based therapies and genetic treatments for advanced epilepsy care

Through coordination between our clinical trials and clinical care teams, we integrate research opportunities with patient treatment, ensuring access to the latest therapeutic advances alongside comprehensive epilepsy care.