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NEC Researcher Nrupen Pakalapati Wins Prestigious Epilepsy Research Award

His innovative work on a less invasive, single-electrode method for monitoring seizures was selected from over 1,500 submissions by the American Epilepsy Society.

CLEVELAND, OH – Nrupen Pakalapati, a researcher at �Ӱ���Ƶ’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, has been named a winner of the prestigious 2025 Grass Foundation Young Investigator Award by the American Epilepsy Society (AES).

The highly competitive award recognizes eight outstanding young investigators whose basic or clinical neuroscience research shows significant promise in the field of epilepsy. Pakalapati’s abstract, titled “Single White Matter Electrode for Bilateral Epileptic Activity Detection and Monitoring,” was selected for this high honor from a pool of more than 1,500 submissions.

The groundbreaking research, conducted under the supervision of Dr. Dominique Durand, a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at CWRU, pioneers a more efficient and less invasive method for monitoring epileptic seizures.

Currently, detecting the source of seizures often requires implanting multiple electrodes, a complex and invasive procedure. Pakalapati’s work explores a novel approach: using a single electrode placed in the brain’s white matter, specifically in tracts like the corpus callosum that connect the two brain hemispheres. These tracts act as major communication highways, making them an ideal strategic point for "listening in" on widespread brain activity.

The study demonstrated that a single white matter electrode could reliably detect seizure activity originating from either hemisphere of the brain. Furthermore, the signal strength recorded from the electrode correlated directly with seizure intensity, suggesting it could be a powerful tool for real-time monitoring.

This method could dramatically reduce the need for multiple electrodes and the challenge of precisely locating seizure foci. The findings also pave the way for advanced, closed-loop therapeutic systems, where a device could not only detect the onset of a seizure but also deliver targeted stimulation to potentially stop it.

In their award notification, the AES Scientific Program Committee congratulated Pakalapati on the selection. As a recipient, he will receive a $1,000 stipend, complimentary registration for the AES Annual Meeting, and special recognition in the AES Program Book and at the conference poster session.

Congratulations to Nrupen Pakalapati on this well-deserved honor, which highlights the cutting-edge neural engineering research being conducted at �Ӱ���Ƶ.