Home Department: Bioengineering
Mentor: Laura Gwilliams (Psychology)

"Effects of Interictal Epileptiform Activity on Language Processing in Children with Epilepsy"

Epilepsy affects half a million U.S. children, which delays their language development, diminishes their educational performance and professional future. Seizures can disrupt developing language networks, yet the mechanisms by which epilepsy induces these changes are not well understood at the neurophysiological level. Riya’s project hypothesizes that interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs), the spike-wave patterns that occur between seizures, disrupt speech comprehension in pediatric epilepsy patients. She will use time-resolved neural data and speech decoding techniques to evaluate the relationship between IED activity and patients’ speech-decoding abilities.