News

Congratulations on two new papers on intracranial electrode localization in humans from us and others!
1. SEEGAtlas: A framework for the identification and classification of depth electrodes using clinical images
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1741-2552/acd6bd

SEEGAtlas was developed by Rina Zelmann at McGill in Montreal as a plugin in the Ibis Neuronav software package enabling multiple imaging tools to locate electrodes:
github.com/IbisNeuronav: https://github.com/IbisNeuronav
SEEGAtlas plugin: https://github.com/IbisNeuronav/IbisPluginsExtraSEEG

2. Modular pipeline for reconstruction and localization of implanted intracranial ECoG and sEEG electrodes
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287921

For the second paper, Dan Soper lead a paper laying out our recon approach used on more than 200 patients which is also an online protocol (below) which was built to help naive users make use of the modular approaches we use involving multiple software packages. This also includes a MMVT-lite thanks to Noam’s and others efforts which can be installed an used for electrode localization. Congrats to Dan and the whole team!

Protocol: https://www.protocols.io/view/modular-reconstruction-and-co-registration-of-imag-5qpvornedv4o/v2

Pariya Salami, Ph.D. and Rina Zelmann, Ph.D. were promoted this past summer to the positions of Instructors in the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and in Harvard Medical School. These well-deserved promotions are credits to their work in understanding seizures, epilepsy, neural signals, stimulation, and closing the loop to neural activity. They both have guided and taught multiple students, fellows, and laboratory technicians over the years in recording from and understanding the brain.

Below are just a few of their publications with more to come!

Salami P, Peled N, Nadalin JK, Martinet LE, Kramer MA, Lee JW, Cash SS. Seizure onset location shapes dynamics of initiation. Clin Neurophysiol. 2020 Aug;131(8):1782-1797. doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2020.04.168.

Salami P, Borzello M, Kramer MA, Westover MB, Cash SS (2022) Quantifying seizure termination patterns reveals limited pathways to seizure end. Neurobiol Dis. (2022). 165:105645. doi: 10.1016/j.nbd.2022.105645.

Krempp C, Paulk AC, Truccolo W, Cash SS, Zelmann R. Effect of Closed-Loop Direct Electrical Stimulation during Sleep Spindles in Humans. Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2020 Jul;2020:3586-3589. DOI: 10.1109/EMBC44109.2020.9175404.

Zelmann R, Paulk AC, Basu I, Sarma A, Yousefi A, Crocker B, Eskandar E, Williams Z, Cosgrove GR, Weisholtz DS, Dougherty DD, Truccolo W, Widge AS, Cash SS. CLoSES: A platform for closed-loop intracranial stimulation in humans. Neuroimage. 2020 Dec;223:117314. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117314.

Adam Khalifa, Ph.D. (right, pictured with Syd Cash, left) has started his new laboratory in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida! Laboratory website: https://khalifa.ece.ufl.edu/

His team will be investigating and developing novel tools for recording and modulating brain activity, with a relevant publication below:

Khalifa A, Zaeimbashi M, Zhou TX, Abrishami SM, Sun N, Park S, Šumarac T, Qu J, Zohar I, Yacoby A, Cash S, Sun NX (2021) The development of microfabricated solenoids with magnetic cores for micromagnetic neural stimulation. Nat Microsystems Nanoeng 7:91. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41378-021-00320-8

Jimmy Yang, M.D. has started his laboratory at Ohio State University in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the Wexener Medical Center

https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/find-a-doctor/jimmy-yang-md-139760

Yang JC, Harid NM, Nascimento FA, Kokkinos V, Shaughnessy A, Lam AD, Westover MB, Leslie-Mazwi TM, Hochberg LR, Rosenthal ES, Cole AJ, Richardson RM, Cash SS. Responsive neurostimulation for focal motor status epilepticus. Ann Clin Transl Neurol. 2021 May 6. doi: 10.1002/acn3.51318.

Congrats to the team on the publication “Learned Motor Patterns Are Replayed in Human Motor Cortex during Sleep” in The Journal of Neuroscience! Rubin et al. examined single unit activity to examine whether there is motor replay of learned motor patterns in the brain activity of someone sleeping after learning the new patterns. By decoding neural activity throughout subsequent sleep, they found that the could identify neural sequences underlying the recently practiced motor task are repeated throughout the night, providing direct evidence of replay in human motor cortex during sleep. This approach, using an optimized brain–computer interface decoder to characterize neural activity during sleep, provides a framework for future studies exploring replay, learning, and memory. Available at: https://www.jneurosci.org/content/42/25/5007

Congrats to the team on the publication “Local and distant cortical responses to single pulse intracranial stimulation in the human brain are differentially modulated by specific stimulation parameters” in Brain Stimulation! Paulk et al. examined brain responses to varying input parameters of single pulse direct electrical stimulation in the brains of individuals with intractable epilepsy undergoing intracranial brain recordings as a part of their clinically indicated care to localize seizure onset zones in the brain. Through systematic hypothesis testing of how different features of the stimulation can induce different responses, the Paulk et al. examined the input-output relationships of stimulation parameters and brain responses. The main finding was that stimulation in the white matter (which is the connections between brain regions) induced more widespread distant neural responses but stimulation at the boundary between the white matter and the grey matter (where the cell bodies of the neurons are located) in the cortex produced bigger local responses, with different effects in different brain regions. The work may lead to both a better understanding of the connectivity of the human brain as well as possibly tailor our use of stimulation in various therapies such as in deep brain stimulation.

Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2022.02.017

Congratulations to Pariya Salami and the team on their recent publication entitled “Quantifying seizure termination patterns reveals limited pathways to seizure end” in the journal Neurobiology of Disease! The study involves looking at the voltage signals at the end of the seizure to examine seizure termination pattern across 710 seizures recorded from 104 patients. They found that most seizures end synchronously, and show block-like termination patterns, often terminating with burst suppression regardless of if they are focal versus generalized. Their work highlight a surprising finding in that, even though epilepsy is varied and complex with a number of causes and symptoms, there may be a limited number of ways that seizures end. This could have significant implications for therapies in interrupting or stopping seizures.

Article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nbd.2022.105645

Congratulations to Angelique Paulk, Ziv Williams, Sydney Cash and coauthors, for their paper “Large-scale neural recordings with single neuron resolution using Neuropixels probes in human cortex”, published in Nature Neuroscience! In this technical report, they demonstrated simultaneous recording from over 200 well-isolated cortical single units in human participants using silicon Neuropixels probes, providing a path for studying human cognitive processes and their dysfunction at unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution

Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-021-00997-0

With the recorded deidentified data made available on DRYAD: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.d2547d840

Posts in the news on the article:

https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2022/03/29/cracking-the-neural-code-in-humans/

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-protocols-neural-neuropixels-clinical.amp

https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/toolbox/probe-captures-neuronal-conversations-in-people/

https://www.brainpost.co/weekly-brainpost/2022/2/8/the-use-of-neuropixels-probes-in-humans

Congratulations to Eyal Kimchi, MD, PhD,  who has been selected as a grand prize winner of the MGH Springboard Studio’s first iSolve awards program along with Sydney Cash! The project seeks to develop innovative wearable EEG devices to help monitor patient mental status.

The Springboard iSolve awards are granted to innovative device, software or design projects that make health care more user-friendly, and include both financial and logistical assistance.

Congratulations to Adam Khalifa, Sydney Cash, and the lab members of Nian Sun’s lab at Northeastern University for their paper “The development of microfabricated solenoids with magnetic cores for micromagnetic neural stimulation”, published in Nature Microsystems & Nanoengineering! They developed novel micromagnetic stimulators to activate neurons. This could lead to novel and powerful neuromodulatory tools for the treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases.

Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41378-021-00320-8

Nian Sun lab: https://web.northeastern.edu/sunlab/

Congratulations to Lou Beaulieu-Laroche, Mark Harnett lab at MIT, and Sydney Cash and the clinicians at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and MGH who made it possible to examine single cell dynamics in brain slice work to compare mammalian cells across 10 mammalian species in the Nature article “Allometric rules for mammalian cortical layer 5 neuron biophysics“! The work is incredible as it highlights the commonalities, and major differences, between cortical brain cells in humans, rodents, rabbits, and non-human primates. The work will be tremendously influential in understanding fundamental aspects of biophysical properties of neurons and how the human brain works.

Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04072-3

Harnett Lab: https://www.markharnett.org/