Sonya Wang
University of Minnesota, MN·Medicine & Clinical Research
Seizures strike about 1 in 300 newborns. Many survivors, between 40% and 60%, face lasting disabilities such as cerebral palsy, developmental delay or epilepsy.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
- Topics
neonatal seizures
newborns
levetiracetam
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Determine the maximum tolerated loading dose of levetiracetam, up to 150 mg/kg, in newborns with mild to moderate seizures through a three-phase dose escalation trial with safety review at each level.
- Compare seizure control from higher-dose levetiracetam against standard dose, with phenobarbital as a randomized 3:1 control in infants who keep seizing after standard treatment.
- Measure the pharmacokinetics of high-dose levetiracetam in newborns, meaning how their bodies absorb and clear the drug.
- Evaluate the accuracy of the improved Persyst neonatal seizure detection algorithm for rapid automated diagnosis of seizures.
More about the research
Seizures themselves may add to brain injury, so faster detection and safer, more effective treatment could improve long-term outcomes. A prior trial, NEOLEV2, found that phenobarbital (PHB) controlled seizures better than standard-dose levetiracetam (LEV). However, PHB caused more breathing suppression, low blood pressure and sedation, and it raises concerns about long-term effects on thinking.
Why it matters
Newborns with seizures, and their families, could benefit from a treatment approach based on seizure burden. In this approach, safer high-dose levetiracetam handles milder cases and phenobarbital, with its greater side effects, is held in reserve. More accurate automated seizure detection could allow faster treatment, which may reduce later disabilities such as cerebral palsy and epilepsy.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test in a randomized trial whether an extra caffeine dose of 10 or 20 mg/kg raises kidney oxygen levels more than placebo in preterm infants under 30 weeks' gestation with low kidney oxygen measured by near-infrared spectroscopy.
Hannah Cranley Glass
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine whether children who develop epilepsy after acute symptomatic neonatal seizures carry more damaging single nucleotide variants and gene-rich copy number variants in known epilepsy genes than children who do not, using genetic testing in the Neonatal Seizure Registry cohort.
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University of Louisville, KY·Medicine & Clinical Research
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The school
University of Minnesota: 88 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 722 research doctorates a year.
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