Narrator: This is Science Today. A University of California, Berkeley researcher has applied a mathematical model to simulate what happens in the brain during an epileptic seizure. Mechanical engineer, Andrew Szeri and his colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco tested the model against an actual patient.

Szeri: We looked at 6 seizures from this single patient, and we focused on two electrodes where it was obvious there was a kind of wavy disturbance that was passing.

Narrator: Sixty-four electrodes were surgically implanted in the patient's brain. This allowed researchers to plot brain activity during a seizure. By testing out their mathematical model using a computer, scientists know more about how and why seizures occur. And this could lead to better treatment methods.

Szeri: For example people are working on interventions like focal cooling a part of the brain. It's been observed that if you cool rapidly a part of the brain that is undergoing a seizure it can dampen down the seizure essentially.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.