Abstract

Epilepsy affects approximately 65 million people globally, with 150,000 new cases diagnosed in the U.S. annually. Over 30% of these individuals suffer uncontrolled seizures, defined as an unacceptable quantity of seizures despite reasonable treatment and, at present, there is no reliable means of seizure prevention. Decades of conjecture as to the nature of the underlying physiologies and sequelae of seizure pathology has led to scientific agreement among complexity scientists that these events arise from a rigid orderliness (i.e., over-synchronization) of brain regions pulling the physiologies away from more naturally chaotic default rhythms. It has been further hypothesized that the seizure is the body‟s way of disposing excess energy as the system strives to restore complexity. This is similar to the way that energy is dissipated from the earth‟s crust during an earthquake, and, importantly, the distributions of seizure energy flows and recurrence times are similar to that of earthquakes as well. Thus, it may be possible to utilize the physiological tremors of NeuroPhysics Therapy (NPT) to provide an avenue for energy dissipation via smaller, more frequent tremor events that may, ultimately, prevent a large seizure episode. In this talk, data will be presented from four cases of epileptic seizure to examine the physiological changes associated with NPT. Nonlinear measures of synchronization and entropy will be explored, and the results will be discussed in the context of seizure dynamics, and lateralization/desynchronization techniques during the application of NPT for seizure prevention.

Key words

Epilepsy, Uncontrolled Seizures, Over-Synchronization, lateralization/desynchronization techniques, NeuroPhysics Therapy.