ABSTRACT:

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders affecting 1% of the population by age 20 and 3% of the population by age 75. One third of these patients continue to have seizures despite being on multiple anti-seizure medications.  Surgical treatments of epilepsy have been shown to be superior than medical treatments for certain patients affected by this conditions. One of the challenges of epilepsy surgery is finding the right patient for the right procedure. A comprehensive epilepsy treatment program requires an interdisciplinary team including neurosurgeons, neurologists/epileptologists, neuroradiologists, neuropsychologists, social workers, and nurses and technicians knowledgeable with intra- or extra-cranial recordings.  We will discuss the current state of epilepsy surgery and the challenges it faces and research opportunities it brings to improve our understanding of human brain so that we can better help our patients.

BIO:

Born in China, Dr. Sun came to the U.S. in 1994 and enrolled at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. He then went on to obtain a combined MD-PhD degree from Dartmouth. He completed his PhD is in biomedical engineering at Thayer School of Engineering in 2004 under the mentorship of Keith Paulsen, PhD. His PhD research sparked his interested in neurosurgery. He completed his neurosurgery residency at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon.  He then completed fellowship training in Epilepsy Surgery at University of Washington in Seattle WA, and then in Skull Base and Cerebrovascular Surgery at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Sun is currently an Assistant Professor in Neurological Surgery and Director of Epilepsy Surgery at Louisiana State University Health Science Center in Shreveport, LA.