Psychomotor slowing is associated with anomalies in baseline and prospective large scale neural networks in youth with epilepsy

Publication date: Available online 20 April 2018 Source:NeuroImage: Clinical Author(s): Camille Garcia-Ramos, Kevin Dabbs, Elizabeth Meyerand, Vivek Prabhakaran, David Hsu, Jana Jones, Michael Seidenberg, Bruce Hermann Purpose Psychomotor slowing is a common but understudied cognitive impairment in epilepsy. Here we test the hypothesis that psychomotor slowing is associated with alterations in brain status reflected through network analysis of large scale structural networks. We test the hypothesis that children with epilepsy with cognitive slowing at diagnosis will exhibit a cross-sectional and prospective pattern of altered brain development. Methods A total of 78 children (age 8–18) with new/recent idiopathic epilepsies underwent 1.5 T MRI with network analysis of cortical, subcortical and cerebellar volumes. Children with epilepsy were divided into slow and fast psychomotor speed groups (adjusted for age, intelligence and epilepsy syndrome). Results At baseline, slow-speed performers (SSP) presented lower modularity, lower global efficiency, higher transitivity, and lower number of hubs than fast-speed performers (FSP). Community structure in SSP exhibited poor association between cortical regions and both subcortical structures and the cerebellum while FSP presented well-defined communities. Prospectively, SSP displayed lower modularity but higher global efficiency and transitivity compared to FSP. Modules in FSP showed higher integration between and with...
Source: NeuroImage: Clinical - Category: Radiology Source Type: research