The Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute (HWNI) is pleased to announce that HWNI members Preeya Khanna and Stephan Lammel are the winners of the 2025 Rennie Fund for the Study of Epilepsy. They will each receive a one-year $40,000 award for their projects described below. The Rennie Fund was created in 1962 as the result of a bequest from the Mary Elizabeth Rennie Trust to support research on epilepsy.
Read about the winning proposals:
Assistant Professor
Department of Neuroscience
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
University of California, Berkeley
Post-traumatic epilepsy can occur after traumatic brain injury. In regions of the world recovering from intensive war such as Vietnam and Croatia, epidemiological studies report that following 10-15 years, about 50% of patients with penetrating cranial wounds have developed epilepsy. Despite progress made in antiepileptic drugs, post-traumatic epilepsy is still poorly controlled. Traumatic brain injury is known to cause degeneration to white matter of the brain resulting in poor communication across brain areas and atrophy of cortex and subcortical structures. In animal models with white matter axonal damage, seizures emerge in the cortical areas above the white matter damage and propagate to other cortical areas. Altogether, these observations suggest that a deafferented cortex and subcortex contribute to the emergence of post-traumatic epilepsy. In this proposal, we seek to develop a novel electrical stimulation tool (adaptive epidural stimulation) that we hypothesize can serve as an artificial bridge between cortical and subcortical brain regions to boost neuronal communication. If this stimulation approach successfully boosts cortical-subcortical neuronal communication, we will test the ability of long-term, chronic use of this stimulation approach to strengthen connectivity across brain regions. The long-term goal of this approach is to build a medical device that can protect against cortical and subcortical disconnection and atrophy that is thought to contribute to post-traumatic epilepsy.
Associate Professor
Department of Neuroscience
University of California, Berkeley
Epilepsy affects millions of people worldwide and is often difficult to treat with existing medications, which can come with serious side effects. We propose to explore whether a naturally occurring brain chemical called neurotensin could help the brain resist seizures. Neurotensin is part of a system in the brain that helps regulate how active or excitable brain cells are, and we believe it may act as a natural seizure protector. We will use advanced tools in mice to track neurotensin in real time and test whether boosting its activity in specific brain circuits can reduce seizures. If successful, this research could uncover a new, more targeted way to treat epilepsy and improve quality of life for patients who do not respond well to current treatments.