White matter abnormalities in patients with partial epilepsy secondary to focal cortical dysplasia revealed by diffusion tensor: imaging (DTI) analysis in a voxelwise approach

Author(s)

Viviane de Carvalho Fonseca

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Ciências Médicas
• Defense date: 2011-02-17

Examining board members

Fernando Cendes; Andre Vital Saude; Anelyssa Cysne Frota D'Abreu

• Advisor: Fernando Cendes

Abstract

Epilepsy secondary to FCD usually begins early in life, however, some cases may have onset after 40 years. Currently FCD has been identified in 20-25% of patients with extratemporal epilepsy and approximately 76% of patients with epilepsy refractory to antiepileptic drug treatment. FCD is a malformation of cortical development (MCD), identified by an abnormal differentiation of cortex and dysplastic neurons on the white matter. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has a powerful ability to describe white matter integrity, through the quantification of the spread and direction of water molecules in tissues noninvasively, which can detect the abnormalities of the brain tissue in an earlier stage than conventional T2- or T1-weighted MRI. Aiming to detect microstructural changes in brain tissue, we used DTI to investigate the WM these patients. For this, we used a measure of diffusion direction, known as fractional anisotropy (FA), which represents the axis orientation of the structures of the fiber bundles along which the water molecules move preferentially, indicating changes in tissue microstructure. We analyzed 53 subjects, 22 patients and 31 healthy individuals. All the patients had clinical and EEG diagnosis of extratemporal epilepsy (frontal lobe), probably secondary to FCD. To process the DTI we used the following softwares: MRIcroN, FSL, TBSS. The comparison between the patients group and control group was performed using two-sample t-test, and the level of significance was set at <0.05. FA reduction in patients were identified in the frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes, which were: right forceps minor (p =0.032), left forceps minor (p = 0.042), left cingulum (p = 0.048), right and left corticospinal tracts (p = 0.022), inferior right fronto-occipital fasciculus (p = 0.022),right and left superior longitudinal fasciculus (p = 0.034), right anterior thalamic radiation (p = 0.034) and the left uncinate fasciculus (p = 0,042). Our results showed a widespread pattern of WM micro structural abnormalities extending beyond the ictal onset zone (frontal lobe), probably due to the epilepsy chronicity. It is possible that this damage is secondary to persistent epileptic discharges with frequent generalization and secondary bilateral synchrony (AU)