Clinical Neurophysiology, Epilepsy, Neuroimaging, and Surgical Neurology
Dr. Sara Inati is the Head of the Neurophysiology of Epilepsy Unit. She previously served as the Chief of the EEG Section and Director of the Epilepsy Service for the Office of the Clinical Director, NINDS (2011-2021). She completed her undergraduate studies at Harvard College, and went on to receive her M.D. with honors from Dartmouth Medical School in 2003. She subsequently completed her medical internship at Lenox Hill Hospital, and her residency training in neurology at the Neurological Institute at Columbia University Medical Center. She continued for two years of fellowship training in epilepsy and clinical neurophysiology at the Columbia Comprehensive Epilepsy Center.
She joined the NIH in 2010 as Staff Clinician with the NINDS neurology consult service then joined the EEG Section the following year, she was appointed as an Assistant Clinical Investigator to head the Neurophysiology of Epilepsy Unit in April 2021. She also serves as the Program Director for the NIH Epilepsy Fellowship Program. She is board certified in Neurology with added qualifications in Epilepsy and Clinical Neurophysiology.
Research Interests:
Dr. Inati's research focuses on understanding the underlying causes of epilepsy and improving the surgical treatment of patients whose seizures don't respond to medication (medically refractory focal epilepsy). Her work centers on pinpointing the specific brain regions where seizures originate and understanding how they spread through brain networks, using advanced neurophysiology and neuroimaging techniques.
She also collaborates with researchers across the NIH to support the evaluation and care of patients with epilepsy, develop EEG biomarkers, and to provide clinical neurophysiological testing, including routine and extended EEG monitoring, evoked potentials, and intraoperative monitoring.
Lab Members:
- Antonio Ivano Triggiani, Ph.D. - Research Scientist
- Jae Hoon Jung, Ph.D. - Research Scientist
- Prabhakararao Eedara, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow (visiting)
- Jawata Afnan, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow
- Mark Zambrano - Postbac IRTA
- Jamie Bernardo - Postboc IRTA
Selected Publications:
- Withers CP, Diamond JM, Yang B, Snyder K, Abdollahi S, Sarlls J, Chapeton JI, Theodore WH, Zaghloul KA, Inati SK. Identifying sources of human interictal discharges with travelling wave and white matter propagation.(external link) Brain. 2023;146(12):5168-5181.
- Snyder K, Whitehead EP, Theodore WH, Zaghloul KA, Inati SJ, Inati SK. Distinguishing type II focal cortical dysplasias from normal cortex: A novel normative modeling approach.(external link) Neuroimage Clin. 2021;30:102565.
- Rentzeperis F, Abdennadher M, Snyder K, Dembny K, Abdollahi S, Zaghloul KA, Talagala L, Theodore WH, Inati SK. Lateralization of interictal temporal lobe hypoperfusion in lesional and non-lesional temporal lobe epilepsy using arterial spin labeling MRI.(external link) Epilepsy Res. 2023;193:107163.
- Diamond JM, Withers CP, Chapeton JI, Rahman S, Inati SK, Zaghloul KA. Interictal discharges in the human brain are travelling waves arising from an epileptogenic source.(external link) Brain. 2023;146(5):1903-1915.
- Diamond JM, Chapeton JI, Xie W, Jackson SN, Inati SK, Zaghloul KA. Focal seizures induce spatiotemporally organized spiking activity in the human cortex.(external link) Nat Commun. 2024;15(1):7075.