Reduction of ipsilateral thalamic volume in temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis

Publication date: September 2018Source: Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, Volume 55Author(s): Kang Min Park, Tae Hyung Kim, Chi Woong Mun, Kyong Jin Shin, Sam Yeol Ha, JinSe Park, Byung In Lee, Ho-Joon Lee, Sung Eun KimAbstractThe thalamus plays an important role in the modulation of both focal and generalized seizures, but the mechanisms related to seizures may be different among epilepsy syndromes. The aim of this study is to investigate the thalamic atrophy in different epilepsy syndromes. We enrolled a total of 72 patients with epilepsy (22 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis, 21 patients with extra-temporal lobe epilepsy, and 29 patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy). We analyzed structural volumes of the brain with FreeSurfer 5.1 software, and compared them among subgroups of epilepsy and normal control subjects. Moreover, we quantified correlations between the duration of epilepsy and the structural volumes with age and sex as covariates. The volumes of the ipsilateral hippocampus in temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis were significantly smaller than those in extra-temporal lobe epilepsy and normal control subjects [analysis of variance (ANOVA), p < 0.001]. Although the volumes of the ipsilateral thalamus were not different from those of normal control subjects, the volumes of the ipsilateral thalamus were negatively correlated with duration of epilepsy in temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis (r = â...
Source: Journal of Clinical Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research