Research On The Resting-state Functional Connectivity Strengths In Patients With Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Objectives:Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rs-f MRI)as a non-invasive brain imaging method is advanced,it is used to analyze the differences between patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and normal human’s the whole brain functional connectivity strengths(FCS),and analyze the situation of patients with emotional disorders,in order to reveal the pathophysiological mechanism of TLE.Materials and Methods:Thirty TLE patients(inpatients and outpatients)from Tianjin Medical University General Hospital and twenty-seven age,gender and years of education matched normal volunteers(control group)were enrolled between June 2015 and August 2016 in this study.MRI data of all subjects were acquired using a 3.0-Tesla MR system(Discovery MR750,General Electric,and Milwaukee,WI,USA).The rs-fMRI data and the whole brain high-resolution anatomical images of all participants were acquired and preprocessed,and then the whole-brain FCS were analyzed.The whole brain high-resolution anatomical images’ preprocession includes spatial normalization,gray matter segmentation and smoothing.Rs-fMRI data preprocession includes time difference correction,head correction,spatial normalization,spatial smoothing,linear drift and low-pass filtering.The differences of clinical basic data of groups,such as age,yeas of education,age of onset,course of disease,and the differences of neuropsychological test results were compared between the two groups by using two-sample t test.In addition,the differences in gender between the two groups were compared by Chi-squared test.Group differences in FCS values were analyzed by general linear model.Finally,correlation analyses were used to evaluate the relationships between the FCS values of the brain regions with group differences and neuropsychology scores in TLE patients.Results:In comparison to the normal controls,the TLE patients had significantly decreased FCS values in the left superior temporal gyrus,right superior temporalgyrus,right superior frontal gyrus,right middle frontal gyrus(the cluster was 96,42,33 and 78 voxels,respectively;P<0.05,respectively).The partial correlation analysis showed that the FCS values of the right superior frontal gyrus was negative correlation with the Beck depression rating scale(BDI)scores(r=-0.433,P=0.024),and the FCS values of the left superior temporal gyrus was negative correlation with the Trait anxiety inventory(T-AT)scores(r=-0.434,P=0.024).Conclusions:These findings suggest that the resting-state functional connectivity strength in patients with TLE is abnormal,which may be the pathophysiological mechanism of epilepsy and provide a theoretical basis for the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy.Rs-fMRI can be used as a noninvasive brain function research method to detect TLE resting-state functional connectivity changes.This study shows that the FCS value in superior temporal gyrus,superior frontal gyrus,middle frontal gyrus decreased significantly,The inhibition of brain function may be an important cause of depression,anxiety and other emotional disorders in patients with epilepsy,and has some clinical value in the evaluation of emotional impairment with epilepsy.