Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Neurol.
Sec. Epilepsy
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2024.1444787

Individual metabolic brain network abnormalities associated with drug-resistant mTLE vary in surgical outcomes

Provisionally accepted
Xinyi Wang Xinyi Wang 1,2Pan Zhang Pan Zhang 1,3Dandan Lin Dandan Lin 4Chunlei Zhao Chunlei Zhao 1,3Zhifeng Huang Zhifeng Huang 1,3Ziqian Chen Ziqian Chen 1,3Hui Li Hui Li 1,3*Shangwen Xu Shangwen Xu 1,3*
  • 1 Department of Diagnostic Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China
  • 2 Department of Radiology, Fujian Provincial Hospital, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China
  • 3 Department of Diagnostic Radiology, The 900th Hospital of Joint Logistic Support Force,PLA, Fuzhou, China
  • 4 Department of Medicine, Fujian Health College, Minhou, Fujian Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Objective: This investigation aimed to elucidate alterations in metabolic brain network connectivity in drug-resistant mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (DR-MTLE) patients, relating these changes to varying surgical outcomes. Methods: A retrospective cohort of 87 DR-MTLE patients who underwent selective amygdalohippocampectomy was analyzed. Patients were categorized based on Engel surgical outcome classification into seizure-free (SF) or non-seizure-free (NSF) groups.Additionally, 38 healthy individuals constituted a control group (HC). Employing effect size (ES) methodology, we constructed individualized metabolic brain networks and compared metabolic connectivity matrices across these groups using the DPABINet toolbox. Results: Compared to HCs, both SF and NSF groups exhibited diminished metabolic connectivity, with the NSF group showing pronounced reductions across the whole brain. Notably, the NSF group demonstrated weaker metabolic links between key networks, including the default mode network (DMN), frontoparietal network (FPN), and visual network (VN), in comparison to the SF group. Conclusion: Individual metabolic brain networks, constructed via ES methodology, revealed significant disruptions in DR-MTLE patients, predominantly in the NSF group. These alterations, particularly between limbic structures and cognitive networks like the DMN, suggested impaired and inefficient information processing across the brain's networks. This study identified abnormal brain networks associated with DR-MTLE and, importantly, contributed novel insights into the mechanisms underlying poor postoperative seizure control, and offered potential implications for refining preoperative assessments.

    Keywords: Drug-resistant mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, positron emission tomographycomputed tomography, connectivity analysis, effect size, surgical outcomes

    Received: 07 Jun 2024; Accepted: 04 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wang, Zhang, Lin, Zhao, Huang, Chen, Li and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Hui Li, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China
    Shangwen Xu, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.