Israel Performs First Brain Pacemaker Surgery in Epilepsy Patient

IFCJ Canada  |  December 5, 2025

A groundbreaking, successful medical procedure marks new Israeli innovation as well as newfound hope for patients who have been suffering. This past week, The Jerusalem Post reported that epilepsy specialists and experts at Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem successfully performed a brain pacemaker transplant in an epilepsy patient, the first outside of the United States and Canada.

The 35-year-old epilepsy patient, referred to as Z., is a mother of four and has been suffering from severe seizures for more than 15 years. A regular at the Epilepsy Center at Hadassah, she had tried every approved anti-seizure medication, but none seemed to work. She especially had to be careful while she was pregnant and susceptible to seizure-induced falls that could injure her and her child. She had to stop working because of them and used a wheelchair to prevent violent falls.

The surgery was made possible after the team identified the location of the exact epileptic focal point in the patient’s brain – the specific area that led to the onset of seizures – in a long and complex process carried out by a multidisciplinary team in the Epilepsy Center.

Dr. Sami Heyman, an epilepsy surgery specialist from the Department of Neurosurgery, together with Prof. Zvi Israel, director of the Department of Neurosurgery and the Functional Neurosurgery Unit at Hadassah, implanted an RNS (Responsive neurostimulation) pacemaker in Z’s brain. This device continuously monitors the electrical activity in the epileptic area of the brain, identifying the patient’s characteristic personal seizures. If it detects a pattern of abnormal activity, which could lead to the development of an epileptic seizure, it will send short electrical pulses to the epileptic brain region and prevent the seizures.

Hadassah neurologist Prof. Dawn Eliashiv said that the pacemaker had led to an 82% reduction in her patient’s seizures. The pacemaker, developed by NeuroPace in California, also helps accurately monitor epilepsy foci within the brain. It also only responds when there is an imminent seizure as opposed to throughout the day. Director Prof. Dana Ekstein also said that the alternative would have been removing the part of Z.’s brain responsible for the seizures, which would most likely damage her vision.

This opens the door for other epilepsy patients like Z., who just want to hold their children without the risk of hurting them. The implant was initially only available in the United States and Canada, but Israeli doctors and surgeons have proved to have the expertise and skill to be entrusted with this revolutionary new treatment.