Giving Compass' Take:

• TED reports on the work of Australian researcher Mark Cook, who conceived of a device that would constantly monitor the brain activity of people with epilepsy, helping to predict seizures. This would help manage and treat the disease.

• Do neurological disorders get enough attention from healthcare funders? As this article shows, there is a lot of room for innovation.

• Read a giving smarter guide to epilepsy.

Australian neurologist and researcher Mark Cook is testing a tool that could take the fear out of epilepsy — for patients and for the rest of the world.

In 2010, Cook and a team of researchers hypothesized that the constant recording of brain activity might hold the key to predicting a seizure. Some patients report feeling odd in the hours or days before a seizure, and studies have shown the brains of people with epilepsy are in “a hyperexcitable state” beforehand. It’s common practice for patients with epilepsy to undergo brain monitoring — usually a scalp electroencephalogram (EEG), in which electrodes are placed on the patient’s head to record electrical activity in the brain. These sessions are usually 20 to 40 minutes long, but Cook’s team wondered: what if a patient could receive 24/7 brain monitoring? That way, the activity that their brain goes through before, during and after a seizure could be recorded and analyzed. Researchers could look for patterns and outliers, and the data could be used to create a seizure prediction algorithm.

In 2011, Cook and his team began testing a first-of-its-kind system, an implanted device that constantly monitored a person’s brain activity.

More than anything, Cook’s drive to build a predictive device is fueled by the belief that it could break down the lingering stigma associated with epilepsy. Even though epilepsy is so common, the disease still scares many people. Patients often tell him how hard it is to talk about the disorder. Cook’s own father had epilepsy, so he’s familiar with the reactions and misconceptions surrounding it. “There’s a lot of ignorance about epilepsy out there,” he says. “People often think it’s psychiatric or contagious.”

Read the full article about the device for people with epilepsy by Hailey Reissman at TED.