Events

Perturbations in Epilepsy

26th & 27th June 2023, Edgbaston Park Hotel, University of Birmingham

Register now: Workshop

Register now Networking session ONLY

Perturbations in Epilepsy is an annual hot-topic workshop series organised by the Centre for Systems Modelling and Quantitative Biomedicine (SMQB). The theme of this year’s event is ‘Quantifying the impact of seizure triggers’.

Epilepsy is a chronic and complex neurological disorder affecting about 65 million people around the world. It manifests as pathological electrical activity in the brain and may lead to recurrent, unprovoked seizures, affecting the quality of life. 

Several physiological factors are known to affect the seizure likelihood in patients with epilepsy including sleep, hormones, and stress. It is imperative to understand the role of these triggers so that they can be identified and potentially avoided. However, the triggers may affect different individuals in different ways and their effects may change over time, even within the same individual. 

Personalized health monitoring devices and apps could help in the long-term monitoring of seizure occurrence and associated triggers. These vital data may be used in seizure prediction, management, and prevention. 

This year, we bring together key stakeholders including patients with lived experience, clinicians, and academics working at the forefront of epilepsy research, along with partners from the wearables industry to enable knowledge exchange and facilitate new collaborations on community-based epilepsy management. We will also facilitate discussions on the career development of early career researchers, to help shape the next generation of scientists in epilepsy research. 

We acknowledge the financial support of the Medical Research Council Proximity to Discovery fund, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the University of Birmingham Dynamic Investment Fund.

Workshop Full Programme

The workshop has four thematic sessions over two days. It will open with a perspective from people with lived experience of epilepsy. In the first session, experts in mathematical and data-based modelling will explore how data gathered from wearables can be used in seizure forecasting and designing interventions to prevent the occurrence of seizures.

The second session sees experts from the wearables and neurotechnology industries explore how seizure triggers could be monitored at home using smartwatches, mobile apps, and EEG headsets.  We will also hold a poster session on Day 1 to provide an opportunity for the attendees to present their work and engage with other participants.

On day two, the third session focuses on the views from clinicians on how various triggers affect the occurrence of seizures. Finally, the last session, a combination of a panel discussion and a round table discussion, will discuss best practices and future requirements to support early career researchers to thrive in the epilepsy research community.

Download the programme (36KB docx)

Networking & Poster Session

At the Networking & Poster Session (Monday 26th June from 17:00) we invite clinicians, epilepsy specialists nurses and people with lived experience of epilepsy to join researchers and industry partners for a drinks reception. This session will provide the opportunity to share perspectives on whether identifying and addressing the impact of seizure triggers would improve the quality of life in people with epilepsy, to network with colleagues and to chat to poster presenters about their work.

The drinks reception is generously sponsored by our industry partner Neuronostics

The Networking & Poster Session event is free but registration is required. Register here and find out more about the session.

Speaker and Chair Biographies

We are grateful to the following experts for chairing the thematic sessions:

The keynote speakers in the workshop include:

Industry leaders and start-ups in the Healthcare Technology sector participating in the workshop include:

Location

The workshop takes places in the Composers' Suite in the Edgbaston Park Hotel located within the University of Birmingham Campus.

Registration and Fees

Register here for the full scientific programme

Register now Workshop

Important Dates

Registration Opens

Poster Abstracts Deadline

31st March

7th June

Registration Deadline

7th June

Registration Fee

Student

Academic

Industry

£50

£100

£200

Register here for the free Networking & Poster Session

Register now Networking Session ONLY

Organising Committee and Contact

The workshop is organised by Dr Aravind Kumar Kamaraj and Dr Isabella Marinelli (SMQB) and the early career researcher symposium is organised by Dr Yingjing Feng (SMQB). 

The organisers can be contacted at smqb@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

About SMQB

We are a group of research innovators with backgrounds in mathematics, computer science, physics, and biomedicine. We are passionate about delivering transformative research that impacts upon lives, through contributing measurable advances to healthcare and medicine.

We pursue a “systems approach” to basic biomedical research and its translation. Our emphasis is on techniques from mathematical and statistical modelling, theoretical physics, machine learning and data science, and biophysical imaging and image analysis being applied to research challenges in neurology and neuroscience; cardiology and cardiovascular sciences; neuroendocrinology, reproduction and metabolism, as well as vertebrate development and genomics.

Our research is informed and co-created with a range of stakeholders, including biomedical researchers, clinical scientists, members of the public and industry partners. We recognise that for our work to be truly impactful we must continue to pioneer new ways of working that bring communities together to address current and future research priorities.

This workshop is an extension of our inclusive ecosystem as we strive to bring in the perspectives of clinicians, persons with lived experience and academic researchers to shape up the future of epilepsy research.