Diana Pizarro

Diana and Dr. Jason Mishalanie provide QEEG brain mapping, neurofeedback, neuromodulation, and neurostimulation services with Peak Neuroscience at Taproot Therapy Collective. You can’t book them for individual therapy, but they are the specialized practitioners that will run your QEEG and brain mapping sessions.

Diana is the Engineering director and EEG analyst at Peak Neuroscience. She graduated from Kennesaw State university in Georgia with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering. Diana worked as a researcher for over 6 years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) department of Neurology, division of epilepsy.  Diana is a CITI program certified engineer in human research, IRB training- Biomedical and Good clinical practice under requirements se by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

She is a PhD. Candidate in electrical and computer engineering at the university of Alabama at Birmingham. Her thesis dissertation comprises the detection of temporal lobe seizures in the Anterior Nucleus of the human thalamus, for patients diagnosed with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) who underwent stereo-electroencephalography (SEEG) exploration for seizure localization. And have failed epilepsy surgery or have multifocal seizure onset zone. She developed a method to approximate the frequency-wise thalamic signal power using a normalized time-frequency decomposition as a marker of heightened neuronal activity often seen during seizure events. Then, using convolutional neural networks the algorithm can detect seizure events in the anterior nucleus of the thalamus, outside of the seizure onset zone with an accuracy of 99.45% before behavioral manifestation of the seizures and a false positive rate (FPR) of only 0.001% per hour.

Diana’s interests include EEG analysis using MATLAB, robotics, digital signal processing, machine learning, neurotypical and neurodivergent childhood brain development, Montessori education, positive discipline, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, language, and botany. She considers herself a life-long learner thanks to her seemingly constant curiosity. Diana is originally from Colombia, and a Spanish speaker, she has lived in the USA for 12+ years. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and child outdoors, reading, bird watching, gardening, hiking, dancing, swimming and kayaking. She also enjoys traveling and trying different foods from all over the world, as well as observing and exploring different family and cultural dynamics from other countries.

Diana’s Publications

1. Automated detection of mesial temporal and temporoperisylvian seizures in the anterior thalamic nucleus. Diana Pizarro, Adeel Ilyas, Emilia Toth, Andrew Romeo, Kristen O. Riley, Rosana Esteller, Ioannis Vlachos, Sandipan Pati. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0920121118301608?via%3Dihub

2. Spectral organization of focal seizures within the thalamotemporal network. Diana Pizarro, Adeel Ilyas, Ganne Chaitanya, Emilia Toth, Auriana Irannejad, Andrew Romeo, Kristen O Riley, Leonidas Iasemidis, Sandipan Pati. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6764631

3. Auras localized to the temporal lobe disrupt verbal memory and learning – Causal evidence from direct electrical stimulation of the hippocampus. Diana Pizarro, Emilia Toth, Auriana Irannejad, Kristen O Riley, Zeenat Jaisani, Wolfgang Muhlhofer, Roy Martin, Sandipan Pati. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6120344/

4. Modulation of neural oscillations by vagus nerve stimulation in posttraumatic multifocal epilepsy: case report.  Adeel Ilyas, Emilia Toth, Diana Pizarro, Kristen O Riley, Sandipan Pati. https://thejns.org/view/journals/j-neurosurg/131/4/article-p1079.xml

5. Seizure Detection and Network Dynamics of Generalized Convulsive Seizures: Towards Rational Designing of Closed-Loop Neuromodulation. Puneet Dheer, Ganne Chaitanya, Diana Pizarro, Rosana Esteller, Kaushik Majumdar, Sandipan Pati. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5745672/

6. Precision mapping of the epileptogenic network with low- and high-frequency stimulation of anterior nucleus of thalamus. Ganne Chaitanya, Emilia Toth, Diana Pizarro, Auriana Irannejad, Kristen Riley, Sandipan Pati. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7434689/

7. Acute Increases in Protein O-GlcNAcylation Dampen Epileptiform Activity in Hippocampus. Luke T Stewart, Anas U Khan, Kai Wang, Diana Pizarro, Sandipan Pati, Susan C Buckingham, Michelle L Olsen, John C Chatham, Lori L McMahon.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5566868/
8. Practice trends and the outcome of neuromodulation therapies in epilepsy: A single-center study. Rabia Jamy, Manmeet Kaur, Diana Pizarro, Emilia Toth, Sandipan Pati. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6698690/

9. Acute modulation of the limbic network with low and high-frequency stimulation of the human fornix. Ganne Chaitanya, Emilia Toth, Diana Pizarro, Leonidas Iasemidis, Teresa A Murray, Kristen Riley, Sandipan Pati. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7232081/

10. Ictogenesis during sEEG evaluation after acute intracranial hemorrhage. Alexandra T Issa Roach, Diana Pizarro, Hrishikesh D Deshpande, Sandipan Pati, Jerzy P Szaflarski, Kristen O Riley, Wolfgang Muhlhofer, Thomas Houston. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6434162/

11. Direct Cortical Stimulation to Probe the Ictogenicity of the Epileptogenic Nodes in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Auriana Irannejad, Ganne Chaitanya, Emilia Toth, Diana Pizarro, Sandipan Pati. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8793936/

12. A peptide blocking the ADORA1-neurabin interaction is anticonvulsant and inhibits epilepsy in an Alzheimer’s model. Shalini Saggu, Yunjia Chen, Liping Chen, Diana Pizarro, Sandipan Pati, Wen Jing Law, Lori McMahon, Kai Jiao, Qin Wang. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9220929/

13. Predictability and Resetting in a Case of Convulsive Status Epilepticus. Timothy Hutson, Diana Pizarro, Sandipan Pati, Leon D Iasemidis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5874309/

14. Dynamics of seizure-induced behavioral and autonomic arousal. Emilia Toth, Ganne Chaitanya, Michael Pogwizd, Diana Pizarro, Adeel Ilyas, Steven Pogwizd, Sandipan Pati. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10286-018-0543-x

15. The centromedian nucleus: Anatomy, physiology, and clinical implications. Adeel Ilyas, Diana Pizarro, Andrew K Romeo, Kristen O Riley, Sandipan Pati.
https://www.jocn-journal.com/article/S0967-5868(19)30016-5/fulltext