Deb Pal is Professor of Paediatric Epilepsy at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London.

The focus of Deb's Epilepsy and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Lab is stratified and precision medicine, which are global initiatives to personalise treatment based on genetic, personal and lifestyle factors. 

In stratified medicine, they use deep phenotyping to distinguish prognostic groups in common epilepsies and as a tool for increasing the power of genome-wide association (GWAS) analysis. Endophenotypes are relevant across neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders and can help to identify common or distinct causes and mechanisms. 

He also studies the function of these genes with neurobiologist colleagues at the MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Sleep disturbance is a serious but underappreciated comorbidity in childhood epilepsy and one that affects not just the child but the whole family as well. Having a child with epilepsy adds another dimension because both the child and parents often live in a state of fear and anxiety about what may happen in the night. 

Deb and his team have designed a novel electronic behavioural intervention for sleep problems in epilepsy that is under evaluation in a national randomised controlled trial. If successful, they hope to translate the intervention into a simple app for parents and revolutionise how effective behavioural treatments can be delivered.

Research interests

• Childhood epilepsy

Key publications

• Wiggs et al, 2021. Development and evaluation of the CASTLE Trial Online Sleep Intervention (COSI) for parents of children with epilepsy. Frontiers in Psychology.
• Smith et al, 2021. Neurodevelopmental Origins of Rolandic Epilepsy: Systematic Review of MR Imaging Studies. Epilepsia Open.
• Shakeshaft et al, 2020. Trait impulsivity in Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy. Ann Clin Transl Neurol.
• Panjwani et al., 2016. A microRNA‐328 binding site in PAX6 is associated with centrotemporal spikes of rolandic epilepsy. Ann Clin Transl Neurol.
• Pal et al., 2003. BRD2 (RING3) Is a Probable Major Susceptibility Gene for Common Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy. American Journal of Human Genetics.

Key collaborators

• Professor Lisa Strug, University of Toronto
• Professor Mark Richardson, King's College London
• Dr Rikke Møller, Danish National Epilepsy Centre