Functional magnetic resonance imaging of ictal epilepsy / 医学研究生学报

ABSTRACT

Objective: To investigate the ictal epileptic activation using simultaneous electroencephalogram functional MRI(EEG-fMRI),and to study the neural mechanism and the roles of the cerebral cortex and subcortical structures in the generation and propagation of the epileptic activity.Methods: A patient with partial epilepsy was retrospectively found to have slight seizures during the simultaneous EEG-fMRI examination.Two sessions of the ictal functional MRI data were processed and analyzed using the general-linear model.Results: Consistent activation patterns were obtained from the two sessions of data.The positive activation was found over the bilateral parietal lobes,insula cortex,bilateral striatum,thalamus and some nuclei of the brain stem,as well as over the vermis and right cerebellar hemisphere.The maximum intensity point was in the left parietal lobe.Conclusion: The seizure activation is originated from the cerebral cortex,and then propagates through the reciprocal circuits made up of the cortex and the subcortical structures.The cerebral cortex and the brain stem reticular formation are the main structures that propagate the seizure to contralateral hemisphere.The subcortical structures play important roles in the seizure propagation and seizure manifestation.