Epilepsy affects more than 50 million people worldwide, and about a third of those do not respond to medication. For some, seizures are generated in parts of the brain that control essential functions—speech, movement or vision—that can’t be safely removed.

Brain “pacemakers,” which send small electrical pulses into the center part of the brain called the thalamus, have helped some patients, but have had minimal effect on others.

“The existing FDA-cleared therapy targets only one portion of the thalamus, the anterior nucleus,” said lead author Arianna Damiani, M.Sc., a graduate student researcher at Pitt’s Rehab Neural Engineering Laboratories (RNEL).