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. 2016 Jul 18:12:306-11.
doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2016.07.007. eCollection 2016.

Cortical and subcortical brain alterations in Juvenile Absence Epilepsy

Manuela Tondelli  1 , Anna Elisabetta Vaudano  1 , Andrea Ruggieri  2 , Stefano Meletti  1
Affiliations

Cortical and subcortical brain alterations in Juvenile Absence Epilepsy

Manuela Tondelli et al. Neuroimage Clin. .

Abstract
in English, Italian

Despite the common assumption that genetic generalized epilepsies are characterized by a macroscopically normal brain on magnetic resonance imaging, subtle structural brain alterations have been detected by advanced neuroimaging techniques in Childhood Absence Epilepsy syndrome. We applied quantitative structural MRI analysis to a group of adolescents and adults with Juvenile Absence Epilepsy (JAE) in order to investigate micro-structural brain changes using different brain measures. We examined grey matter volumes, cortical thickness, surface areas, and subcortical volumes in 24 patients with JAE compared to 24 healthy controls; whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and Freesurfer analyses were used. When compared to healthy controls, patients revealed both grey matter volume and surface area reduction in bilateral frontal regions, anterior cingulate, and right mesial-temporal lobe. Correlation analysis with disease duration showed that longer disease was correlated with reduced surface area in right pre- and post-central gyrus. A possible effect of valproate treatment on brain structures was excluded. Our results indicate that subtle structural brain changes are detectable in JAE and are mainly located in anterior nodes of regions known to be crucial for awareness, attention and memory.

•Subtle brain changes are detectable in Juvenile Absence Epilepsy.•Patients showed reduced gray matter and surface area in attentional and awareness networks.•Longer disease was correlated with reduced surface area in pre- and post-central regions.•Grey matter volume and surface analyses showed concordant findings.

Keywords: Cortical thickness; Juvenile Absence Epilepsy; MRI; Sodium valproate; Surface area; Voxel based morphometry.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
VBM group comparison results. In blue are depicted areas of decreased volume in patients compared to controls; only regions surviving to the statistical threshold (voxel-wise p < 0.001 and cluster size ≥ 686 voxels) are showed. The morphometric results are displayed onto the normalized SPM-glass brain (left images) and warped to the PALS-B12 atlas in Caret (Caret, http://brainvis.wustl.edu/wiki/index.php/Caret:About; (Van Essen, 2005)) (mesial and dorsal view) for right (R) and left (L) hemisphere (right images). (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Correlation scatter plot between disease duration and surface measures. In each graph, y axis represents surface area measures as resulted from Freesurfer analysis, x axis represents disease duration in years.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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