The Australian Epilepsy Project (AEP) will change the lives of people living with epilepsy by reducing uncertainty surrounding diagnosis and fast-tracking the path to optimal treatment using the combination of advanced imaging, genetics, cognition, and artificial intelligence. Such improvements will result in better outcome prediction at disease onset, a higher rate of seizure freedom, reduced economic burden of disease and will increase life-participation of people with epilepsy. 

The AEP will establish a national network of community hubs that deliver this comprehensive package of advanced tests to formulate the AEP report – a powerful clinical decision support tool.  

Critical to this AEP ambition, is the NCRIS-supported National Imaging Facility (NIF) 3T research human imaging national network. This delivers, for our research community, the infrastructure capability that makes national projects such as the AEP possible.  This access to cutting edge capabilities accelerates innovation and research and allows translation of research solutions to clinical care. 

Given that epilepsy is a life-long disease the accrued health care costs are enormous. It is in fact the second most costly neurological condition behind dementia. The introduction of the precision medicine offered by the AEP, presents billions of dollars of savings in direct healthcare cost. The AEP can cure people of this life-long, disabling disease that consumes such valuable time and costly resources. NCRIS-supported infrastructure provides a capability that helps deliver the AEP and the lifechanging benefits to all Australians living with epilepsy. 

This story was contributed by the Florey Node of NIF. For more information on the AEP, visit www.epilepsyproject.org.au