Watch Dr Tracie Tan accept the research grant award and hear a bit about the project.
Project Summary:
Autoimmune encephalitis (AE) is a brain disease that results when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the brain leading to inflammation and injury. AE causes a range of disabling symptoms including memory loss, behavioural changes, and seizures, with many patients having ongoing symptoms despite treatment. Of note, AE is made up of a group of different subtypes caused by the abnormal immune attack on the brain. AE subtypes vary in terms of symptoms, severity and long-term consequences. Furthermore, individual patients within any one AE subtype will have different disease severities.
The main treatment for AE involves medications that suppress the immune system to treat brain inflammation and prevent injury. Treatment selection is currently based on a ‘one-size fits all’ approach despite the variability in symptoms and prognosis. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a technique that measures brain electrical activity which can change in different brain diseases. It gives a real-time assessment of the severity of brain dysfunction. Therefore, EEG may be useful in subtyping AE, assessing seizure risk and potentially predicting outcomes. This would lead to a more individualised approach to treatment.
My project is looking at EEG signals and will correlate the EEG findings to patient symptoms, their brain scans, and overall outcomes. We hope to find unique EEG patterns that may help clinicians more rapidly predict disease subtype and severity and thereby optimise patient management and patient counselling. If unique EEG predictors are found, it will contribute to the future development of clinical guidelines that can assist with accurate disease diagnosis, monitoring and treatment. Overall, this can hopefully ease AE related disease burden.
The Brain Foundation is dedicated to funding the next generation of Australian research into brain disorders, diseases, and injuries, with the ultimate goal of advancing diagnoses, treatments, and patient outcomes.