Computer program continues to bring hope to epileptics.

The condition is epilepsy. While drugs exist to control seizure problems, they don’t work for 40% of Canadian epileptics. As a result, these patients have to consider surgical removal of the brain lesions, or scar tissues, that cause seizures. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used in hospitals across the country to help neurologists and neurosurgeons find the lesions. MR images are produced using a radiology technique and display internal images of the body on screen. However, it is not always easy to find the lesions in standard MR images. So, Dr. Andrea Bernasconi at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) created a computer program that helps remedy this problem. First developed in 2001, the program, which is nicknamed Texture, intensifies MR images, highlighting areas of abnormal brain tissue in patients’ scans (Figure 1). This makes it easier for neurological teams at the MNI to detect seizure-causing brain lesions in certain epileptics – and then to remove the problem to potentially reduce or eliminate seizures. Texture is continually evolving so that it can become even more helpful in the detection of brain lesions and useful for other hospitals. “With MRI, you are dealing with a picture,” explains Dr. Bernasconi, a researcher funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). “A clearer picture, in a sense, helps neurologists or neurosurgeons understand what should be done with epileptic patients. If they find something abnormal, like a lesion, they can take it out.”