Ultra-high Field (UHF) MRI Imaging in Epilepsy with Dr. Ahmad Marashly

Sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Medicine Department of Neurology and Brain Sciences

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders affecting 50 million people worldwide. While most patients with epilepsy respond to medications, one-third do not and require further treatments. Epilepsy surgery is the most effective therapy available for seizures originating from one specific area of the brain. One of the most important factors in determining eligibility for epilepsy surgery is the presence of abnormal, epileptogenic lesions on brain imaging such as MRI.  However, one third of patients with focal seizures do not have any abnormalities on MRI which makes surgical planning complex. 

The current MRI scans used in clinical practice operate on a magnet with a strength of 3 Tesla.  Recently, MRIs with powerful magnets at 7 Tesla have been used to evaluate patients with focal epilepsy, especially those requiring epilepsy surgery.  

Join us for a presentation by Dr. Ahmad Marashly who will review the literature on multi-modal imaging using ultra-high field (7 Tesla) MRI imaging and discuss the ongoing research here at Hopkins focused on optimizing the sequences used on the 7T MRI in order to maximize our ability to detect any subtle focal lesions. This program will be presented on Zoom. A link will be shared in advance of the program.