Analysis of abnormal structural connectivity in extra-temporal lobe epilepsy patients

In focal epilepsy the seizures originate from a localised region of the brain. Due to its nature, patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy are more suitable for surgical resection of the culprit tissue. Though associated with serious neurological and cognitive comorbidities, surgery is more likely to result in seizure freedom than continued medical treatment. Continuing the previous work done in ICOS, we used pre- and post-operative diffusion MRI data to analyse the structural connectivity for extra-temporal lobe epilepsy patients with positive (seizure free) and negative outcomes. We used a novel method to control for the added heterogeneity from the wide range of non-temporal lobe locations.

In this talk I will discuss the results of our analysis of abnormal connections in brains of patients with different surgical outcomes, and I will describe a method to distinguish seizure freedom through pre-operative diffusion MRI in a highly heterogeneous eTLE cohort.