Dr. Oleksii Shandra, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, received a $758,808 Virtual Post-Traumatic Epilepsy Research Center Faculty Award from the Department of Defense’s (DoD) U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command.
Dr. Shandra will work alongside his faculty mentor Richard Staba, Ph.D., Associate Professor in Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), and collaborator Rachel Rowe, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Integrative Physiology at the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Their combined expertise supports Dr. Shandra’s project titled “Neuromodulation and Neuroplasticity in Sleep-Disrupted Post-Traumatic Epileptogenesis,” which focuses on the intersection of sleep, trauma and non-invasive brain stimulation to investigate the new mechanisms and therapeutic strategies to prevent post-traumatic epilepsy.
Dr. Shandra’s team is currently studying if long-term sleep disruption before a traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects neuronal activity linked to the development of post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE). They are especially interested in how sleep disruption and TBI affect the excitatory and inhibitory balance in the brain, as Dr. Shandra hypothesizes that it may not only increase the excitatory state of neurons, but also hinder the ability of the inhibitory GABAergic system to control and counteract this excitation.
To test this, Dr. Shandra and his team are using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive brain stimulation technique, to explore its potential to restore GABAergic control, improve sleep and possibly prevent or delay the onset of epilepsy. This noninvasive neuromodulation technique could significantly impact post-traumatic epilepsy treatment, shifting from traditional symptomatic treatment towards disease-modifying therapy and prevention strategies.