The short version
- UNC Health is testing MRI-guided focused ultrasound, with no incision, to inactivate the brain tissue that drives seizures in adults whose epilepsy resists treatment.
- The phase 1 trial plans 10 patients and had treated three by July.
- One participant’s reported drop from about 85 seizures a month to fewer than one is a single case, and the trial has not yet published results.
Thatcher Carr, 46, has had focal epilepsy since 2003. Medication and an earlier brain procedure did not stop his seizures, which averaged about 85 a month. In October 2025, at UNC Health in Chapel Hill, he was treated with focused ultrasound: patients lie awake in an MRI scanner while a helmet aims hundreds of ultrasound beams through the skull at the tissue where seizures begin. UNC reports he now has fewer than one a month, and WCTI retold his story on November 6.
The procedure is part of an FDA-regulated phase 1 trial (NCT03417297) led by neurosurgeon Vibhor Krishna, testing safety, feasibility and early effect in adults with treatment-resistant focal epilepsy. UNC Research says 10 patients are planned and three had been treated by July. A 2023 pilot with two patients, published in Epilepsia, reported fewer seizures in both and no severe side effects. “We needed a new, single-use intervention that is less invasive and more effective,” Krishna said in the UNC release.
The procedure is investigational and not approved for epilepsy, and the seizure counts are UNC’s and Carr’s own, not yet peer-reviewed trial data.
