Emerging translocator protein-positron emission tomographic imaging improves detection of focal cortical dysplasia.

Objective: The identification of epileptic lesions is crucial for improving surgical outcomes. Nevertheless, substantial focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) may be invisible on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We aimed to characterize the expression pattern of 18-kDa translocator protein (TSPO) in FCD and to evaluate the effectiveness of this inflammation-reflective molecular imaging technique for detecting FCD.

Spatial transcriptomics in focal cortical dysplasia type IIb.

Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) type IIb (FCD IIb) is an epileptogenic malformation of the neocortex that is characterized by cortical dyslamination, dysmorphic neurons (DNs) and balloon cells (BCs). Approximately 30-60% of lesions are associated with brain somatic mutations in the mTOR pathway. Herein, we investigated the transcriptional changes around the DNs and BCs regions in freshly frozen brain samples from three patients with FCD IIb by using spatial transcriptomics.

The alteration of cortical microstructure similarity in drug-resistant epilepsy correlated with mTOR pathway genes.

Background: Drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) is associated with distributed laminar disruptions due to cytoarchitectonic pathologies, which may be characterized by multimodal MRI approaches such as morphometric similarity networks (MSNs). However, the genetic and histological underpinning of MSN alterations in DRE remains poorly understood, hampering its clinical application.

Methods: We enrolled 60 patients with DRE and 23 controls, acquiring T1 and diffusion spectrum imaging data with a 3.