People can be affected by neurological disorders from birth or as a result of injury or illness. Many are life threatening, while most of them severely affect people’s quality of life and many cause life-long disability. The conditions that fall under this category and which are treated at The National Hospital include multiple sclerosis (MS), epilepsy, and mitochondrial diseases, among many, many others.

We’re funding initiatives to improve diagnosis, treatment and provide dedicated facilities for those with ongoing neurological conditions.

We are currently funding a project to help the thousands of patients seen at The National Hospital who live with epilepsy. Taking place both at the dedicated epilepsy centre that we part-funded – at Chalfont St Peter and at Queen Square – we are committing £270,000 to this initiative which uses Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) combined with electroencephalography (EEG) to further epilepsy research. TMS is safe, non-invasive way to stimulate the brain in people with epilepsy, looking for clues that might help to understand the condition better, and EEG records the brain’s responses to this. The aim is to use this quick technique to better understand alterations in brain activity, examine treatment responses, and to explore gene function in epilepsy. Our funding will help to buy the EEG system and fund a member of staff to support the research.