White Matter Network Disruptions and Cognitive Dysfunctions in Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy
Abstract number :
2.184
Submission category :
5. Neuro Imaging / 5A. Structural Imaging
Year :
2022
Submission ID :
2204244
Source :
www.aesnet.org
Presentation date :
12/4/2022 12:00:00 PM
Published date :
Nov 22, 2022, 05:24 AM
Authors :
Ji Hye Shin, MD – Korea University Guro Hospital; Ji Hyun Kim, MD.PHD – Korea University Guro Hospital
Rationale: Recent MRI studies have provided converging evidence of structural and functional abnormalities of the thalamocortical network in patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME). The evaluation of the role of aberrant neuronal networks in epilepsy using a graph theoretical approach is of growing research interest. There are only a few available studies investigating white matter network alterations in JME, yielding inconsistent results across the studies.
Methods: High-resolution volumetric MRI and diffusion tensor imaging (128 noncollinear directions) were acquired using a 3T scanner in 74 patients with JME and 69 controls. A comprehensive cognitive assessment was performed as well. Structural connections between pairs of the 68 cortical and 14 subcortical regions were established. Network measures were computed to quantify the global and nodal network properties, and white matter connectivity was compared between patients and controls using network-based statistics. The relationships were further explored between the topological network measures and clinical characteristics and cognitive performance.
Results: Weaker connectivity was identified in subnetworks consisting of 18 edges and 17 nodes in JME patients compared to controls. In global network measures, patients had a significant decrease in total strength, clustering coefficient, small-worldness, global efficiency, and local efficiency, and an increase in characteristic path length, relative to controls. Compared to controls, patients revealed widespread reductions in all nodal network measures including nodal degree, nodal strength, clustering coefficient, local efficiency, and regional efficiency. Patients with JME showed poorer performance than controls on multiple cognitive domains including naming, attention/working memory, frontal executive function, verbal/visual memory.
Conclusions: We have provided evidence for widespread white matter disruptions in corticocortical and corticosubcortical networks in patients with JME. Our finding of aberrant brain network topology may support the recent concept of JME as a network epilepsy and implicate cognitive dysfunctions and disease progression in JME.
Funding: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Neuro Imaging