Epilepsy

Dr. Sankar's laboratory research has addressed the mechanisms of seizure-induced injury and epileptogenicity in the developing brain, and is funded by the NINDS, NIH. Present research also includes investigations on improving the throughput for screening compounds for antiepileptogenic action on the developing brain and modeling the comorbidity of depression that accompanies epileptogenesis. Recent work by Drs. Mazarati and Sankar have demonstrated connections between the epileptic state, physiologic stress, inflammation and how these factors modify the serotonergic tone in the brain stem-hippocampal pathways.
Clinical research interests include the development of improved diagnostics in the evaluation of infants and children for epilepsy surgery, appliacations of dietary therapy (ketogenic diet, modified Atkins, low-glycemic index dietary therapy) in the treatment of seizure disorders, childhood absence epilepsy (0ngoing NIH funded multi-center study, and anticonvulsant drug trilas.