Epilepsy is a neurological condition characterized by recurring seizures. There are a number of root causes of epilepsy including infection, brain trauma, and developmental abnormalities but in people who develop epilepsy the seizures become recurrent and unprovoked. Epilepsy can have a number of adverse impacts on health and daily functioning. In children the recurrent seizures may also alter the development of brain organization. We are interested in understanding how epilepsy alters the trajectory of brain development and finding treatments and timing of treatments that minimize disruption of social, behavioral, and emotional development.
Representative Publications
Morningstar, M., Grannis, C., Mattson, W.I., Nelson, E.E. (2022). Functional patterns of neural activation during vocal emotion recognition in youth with and without refractory epilepsy. Neuroimage Clinical 34, 102966Morningstar, M., French, R.C., Matson, W.I., Englot, D., Nelson, E.E. (2021) Social Brain networks: Resting-state and task-based connectivity in youth with and without epilepsy. Neuropsychologia, 157, 107882. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2021.107882PMID: 33964273Morningstar, M., Hung, A., Mattson, W.I., Gedela, S., Ostendorf A.P. Nelson, E.E. (2020). Internalizing symptoms in intractable pediatric epilepsy: Structural and functional brain correlates. Epilepsy and Behavior, 103,1-12. PMID: 31882324 PMID: 31882324