Identification of abnormal closed-loop pathways in patients with MRI-negative pharmacoresistant epilepsy.

Epilepsy is a disorder of brain networks, that is usually combined with cognitive and emotional impairment. However, most of the current research on closed-loop pathways in epilepsy is limited to the neuronal level or has focused only on known closed-loop pathways, and studies on abnormalities in closed-loop pathways in epilepsy at the whole-brain network level are lacking. A total of 26 patients with magnetic resonance imaging-negative pharmacoresistant epilepsy (MRIneg-PRE) and 26 healthy controls (HCs) were included in this study.

Structural and functional changes in the default mode network in drug-resistant epilepsy.

Purpose: To investigate brain network properties and connectivity abnormalities of the default mode network (DMN) in drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE). The study was based on probabilistic fiber tracking and functional connectivity (FC) analysis, to explore the structural and functional connectivity patterns change between frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE) and temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).

Methods: A total of 33 DRE patients (18 TLE and 15 FLE) and 30 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited.

Neurovascular coupling changes in patients with magnetic resonance imaging negative focal epilepsy.

Brain neuron activity is closely related to cerebral blood flow (CBF) changes. Alterations in the regional homogeneity (ReHo) and CBF occur in patients with magnetic resonance imaging negative focal epilepsy (FEP-MRI). However, the coupling alterations of ReHo and CBF in FEP-MRI remain unclear.

Immediate Effects of Vagal Nerve Stimulation in Drug-Resistant Epilepsy Revealed by Magnetoencephalographic Recordings.

Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) has been a neuromodulatory option for treating drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE), but its mechanism remains unclear. To obtain insight into the mechanism by which VNS reduces epileptic seizures, the immediate effects of VNS in brain networks of DRE patients were investigated when the patients' vagal nerve stimulators were turned on. The brain network properties of 14 DRE patients with a vagal nerve stimulator and 14 healthy controls were evaluated using magnetoencephalography recordings for 6 main frequency bands.