Sleep & Epilepsy Interactions

Speakers for this event

• Birgit Frauscher

  Birgit Frauscher

  MD, PhD

  Dr. Birgit Frauscher is a clinician scientist whose career is dedicated to improving the diagnosis and prognosis of patients with epilepsy by developing new methods based on advanced EEG techniques to better localize the epileptic focus in order to improve epilepsy treatment outcomes and ultimately achieve the best possible quality of life. Dr. Frauscher is Director of the Duke Comprehensive Epilepsy Center and holds a secondary appointment with the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Duke Pratt School of Engineering.Dr. Frauscher graduated from the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria, where she completed her medical training, residency in neurology, and subspecialty training in electroencephalography, epilepsy and sleep medicine. She also completed specialized training in intracranial EEG and signal analysis at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, McGill University in Canada between 2013 – 2015 and subsequently, as an attending Epileptologist and Group Leader of Epilepsy and Professor of Neurology.Dr. Frauscher has over 170 peer-reviewed papers and her research interests include the development of novel seizure-independent EEG markers for the epileptogenic zone, investigation of the important interactions between sleep and epilepsy, and the use of invasive intracranial EEG for studying brain physiology during wakefulness and sleep in order to better delineate normal from abnormal intracranial EEG activity.Her scholarly endeavors have earned her several prestigious awards, including Clinician-Scientist award from the FRQS (2018-2023), the Michael Prize from the International League against Epilepsy (2019) and the Ernst Niedermeyer Prize from the Austrian Epilepsy Society (2015).

  MD, PhD