Alexander, Allyson – Assistant Professor

Key areas of focus: pediatrics, epilepsy, cellular mechanisms

Dr. Alexander is a neurosurgeon-scientist whose daily goal is to improve the lives of children with epilepsy by offering today’s best surgical treatments to appropriate patients and by investigating the underlying mechanisms of epileptogenesis in order to contribute to the promise of new treatments in the future. Techniques in the lab include: slice electrophysiology in human tissue resected during epilepsy surgery, slice electrophysiology in rodents, in vivo video-EEG recording in rodents, and immunohistochemistry in humans and rodents. Currently, the main focus of the lab is investigating the mechanisms leading to seizures in focal cortical dysplasia, a malformation of cortical development that leads to seizures in children. This work is being carried out in parallel with both human tissue and a novel mouse model of focal cortical dysplasia. Another focus of the lab is determining how vagus nerve stimulation, a clinically-used treatment for medically refractory epilepsy, exerts its anti-epileptic effects.