DTI OF POST-ICTAL CHANGES IN PATIENTS WITH TEMPORAL LOBE EPILEPSY

该子项目是利用NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源的许多研究子项目之一。子项目和研究者（PI）可能从另一个NIH来源获得主要资金，因此可以在其他CRISP条目中表示。所列机构为中心，不一定是研究者所在机构。简介：行为观察表明，癫痫发作具有显著的短期功能后果，其持续时间长达发作本身后24小时。许多癫痫患者遭受持续数小时的发作后轻瘫，偶尔持续一天或更长时间。据认为，这种发作后状态与细胞变化如水肿相关。因此，在发作后期间使用扩散张量成像（DTI）的测量可以揭示扩散率的特定差异，这可以用于帮助癫痫灶的定位。此外，长期顽固性癫痫会导致神经元死亡和最终硬化。由于弥散张量成像可以测量这种皮层病变所产生的变化，因此将长期癫痫患者的纤维束变化与正常对照组的纤维束变化进行比较，可能有助于我们了解顽固性癫痫发作如何改变正常的皮层组织。 方法：采用全脑弥散张量成像（DTI）技术对癫痫患者的白色束进行测量。本研究有两个具体目的：（1）利用DTI测量局灶性颞叶癫痫（TLE）发作后弥散度的变化;（2）比较长期TLE患者和正常人发作间期白色物质纤维束的DTI测量结果。到目前为止，我们已经开发了基本的可视化和统计软件来分析DTI数据，我们已经收集了两个癫痫患者的测量结果，以证实这项工作是可行的。

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. INTRODUCTION: Behavioral observations show that epileptic seizures have significant short term functional consequences lasting up to 24 hours following the seizure itself. Many epileptic patients suffer from a post-ictal paresis that lasts for several hours, and occasionally for a day or more. It is thought that this post-ictal state correlates with cellular changes such as edema. Thus measurements using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) during the post-ictal period may reveal specific differences in diffusivity, which could be used to aid in the localization of seizure foci. In addition, long-term, intractable epilepsy causes neuronal death and eventual sclerosis. Since DTI can measure changes produced by such sclerotic lesions, a comparison of the changes in the fiber tracts in patients with long-term epilepsy with those of normal controls may aid in our understanding of how intractable seizures alter normal cortical organization. METHODS: We are using whole brain DTI to make measurements of white matter tract changes in epileptic patients. In this study, we have two specific aims: (1) to use DTI to measure post-ictal changes in diffusivity in focal temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and (2) to compare the inter-ictal DTI measurements of white matter fiber tracts in patients with long-term TLE with those of normal subjects. Thus far, we have developed basic visualization and statistical software for analyzing DTI data, and we have collected measurements on two epileptic subjects to confirm that this work is feasible.