Projects

Research Council of Finland’s decision 344712. Epilepsy is among the most common neurological diseases, affecting 0.5-1% of the general population. Epilepsy is also among the most frequently diagnosed neurological paediatric disorders, with long-term implications for the quality of life of those affected. Only in two-thirds of cases, seizures can be adequately controlled with anticonvulsant drug treatment. For the remaining drug-refractory patients with focal epilepsy, surgery is currently the most effective treatment. However, only 15-20% of those patients are eligible for epilepsy surgery. PerEpi aims to bring together a group of experts at the European level to improve this situation in two ways. The first one focuses on a new individualised multimodal approach to offer the most appropriate personalised therapy. The second one focuses on a new individually optimized transcranial electric brain stimulation technique as a new treatment which is attractive for those focal refractory patients, where surgery is not an option.

FETD-Based Tomographic Full-Wave Radar Imaging of Small Solar System Body Interiors (2021-2023)

Research Council of Finland’s decision 336151. This research plan aims to open new possibilities and prospects in space research and astrophysics and to support the science goals of future space missions by radio wave imaging. Our aim is to enable the pre-processing and inversion of tomographic full-waveform radar measurements with a small Solar System body, i.e., asteroid or comet, as a target. The global interior structure of asteroids and comets is essential in the theories on the history and evolution of the Solar System. Low-frequency (10-20 MHz) radar tomography (RT) provides one of the few direct measurement techniques for sounding the global scale interior permittivity distribution. We have published some of the key papers concentrating on this topic, developing the central mathematical methodology as well as showing the necessity of the full-wave RT. The project proposed will provide full-wave RT software tools needed in high-performance (1) forward and (2) inverse computations and (3) pre-processing.

High- and low-frequency inverse imaging with signal sparsity: biomedical and astro/geophysical applications (2016-2018)

Research council of Finland’s decision 305055. This project investigated the applications and mathematical solutions of high and low-frequency inverse imaging. The areas of imaging involved mainly quasi-static and waveform electromagnetic applications in biomedical engineering and astrophysics. The outcome of the project includes, for example, a computational model for imaging the interior structures of the asteroids and a space mission concept for performing the measurements. Additionally, an advanced source model and an open-source software package were developed and published for brain imaging.

Non-invasively reconstructing and inhibiting activity in focal epilepsy (2023-2024)

Research Council of Finland’s decision 354976. Epilepsy is among the most common neurological diseases, affecting between 0.5% and 1% of the general population. Therefore, new diagnosis and treatment methods have a high impact on society. Only in two-thirds of cases, seizures can be adequately controlled with anticonvulsant drug treatment. For the remaining drug-refractory patients with focal epilepsy, epilepsy surgery is currently the most effective treatment. We have two main scientific goals both of which use non-invasive concepts. The first one concerns the application of our new individualized combined EEG/MEG source analysis approach to localize the epileptogenic zone. The second one focuses on our new individually optimized multi-channel tDCS brain stimulation technique as a new potential treatment to reduce seizure frequency and severity. Our proposed collaboration carries strong complementarity as the partners specialize on inverse problems (TAU) as well as forward modelling, optimization and clinical aspects (IBB).

Advancing Finite Element Computations for Reconstructing and Manipulating the Human Somatosensory Cortex (2018-2021)

Research Council of Finland’s decision 326668. This research project will focus on advancing the finite element method computations in the quasi-non-invasive reconstruction and manipulation of neuronal networks in the human brain and, particularly, in the electro-/magnetoencephalography (EEG/MEG) source analysis and in transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) of the human somatosensory network. A central goal will be to implement finite element techniques for the open-source DUNEuro library which is currently being developed by Prof. Carsten H. Wolters’ research group. The DUNEuro library will also be interfaced with important freely available academic platforms, e.g., the popular FieldTrip toolbox, in order to make the new DUNEuro FEM approaches available for applied neuroscientists and to enhance the research impact.

Super-resolution driven by sparsity priors in linear inverse problems with application in microscopy and neuroimaging (2018-2022)

Research Council of Finland’s decision 326454. In conventional fluorescence microscopy, the wave nature of light and its interaction with the optical system results in a loss of information with regard to localizing single molecules. Particularly, instead of sparse spots, the final image is severely blurred. In other sparse imaging problems such as the estimation of sparse focal activity inside the brain from electroencephalography (EEG) recordings, the result can also be very poor due to the limited number of sensors around the head. The aim of this project is to improve the detection of these sparse spots so that they can be further analysed and used in diagnostics. In this project, we will develop novel super-resolution algorithms for the accurate estimation of point sources by using sparsity constraints and multi-grid techniques. The study of the effects of the sparse modelling on the estimates will allow the development of robust algorithms which can enable the localization of single molecules and EEG focal activity.