Giovanni Assenza1, Jacopo Lanzone2, Angelo Insola3, Giulia Amatori2, Lorenzo Ricci2, Mario Tombini2, Vincenzo Di Lazzaro2. 1. Neurology, Neurophysiology and Neurobiology Unit, Department of Medicine, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Rome, Italy. Electronic address: g.assenza@unicampus.it. 2. Neurology, Neurophysiology and Neurobiology Unit, Department of Medicine, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Rome, Italy. 3. Neurophysiology Unit, CTO Hospital, Rome, Italy.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Imaging and neurophysiological data shows that the cortical disfunction caused by focal epilepsy is not limited to the epileptic focus, thus raising the modern vision of focal epilepsy as a network disorder. The involvement of deep thalamo-cortical projections in temporal lobe epilepsy is a clear example. We aimed at demonstrating the interictal functional impairment of thalamo-cortical network in drug-naïve TLE patients through the study of high frequency oscillations of somatosensory evoked potentials (HF-SEP). METHODS: Twelve healthy controls (HC; 8 females, 52.2 ± 17.3 years-old) and 12 drug-naïve TLE patients (8 females, 55.5 ± 21.5 years-old) underwent bilateral median HF-SEP, recorded by scalp electrodes. Cp3'-Fz and Cp4'-Fz traces were filtered (400-800 Hz) to evidence HF-SEP. RESULTS: HF-SEP duration in the affected hemisphere was significantly longer when compared to that of both the unaffected hemisphere and HC hemispheres. No significant inter-hemispheric differences were found in areas, powers and latencies of HF-SEP wavelets. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate that TLE induces early interictal functional impairments of the thalamo-cortical network. SIGNIFICANCE: Our data strongly corroborates the vision of focal epilepsy as a network disorder and offers a new neurophysiological tool to test pharmacological, surgical and neuromodulatory therapies.
OBJECTIVES: Imaging and neurophysiological data shows that the cortical disfunction caused by focal epilepsy is not limited to the epileptic focus, thus raising the modern vision of focal epilepsy as a network disorder. The involvement of deep thalamo-cortical projections in temporal lobe epilepsy is a clear example. We aimed at demonstrating the interictal functional impairment of thalamo-cortical network in drug-naïve TLEpatients through the study of high frequency oscillations of somatosensory evoked potentials (HF-SEP). METHODS: Twelve healthy controls (HC; 8 females, 52.2 ± 17.3 years-old) and 12 drug-naïve TLEpatients (8 females, 55.5 ± 21.5 years-old) underwent bilateral median HF-SEP, recorded by scalp electrodes. Cp3'-Fz and Cp4'-Fz traces were filtered (400-800 Hz) to evidence HF-SEP. RESULTS: HF-SEP duration in the affected hemisphere was significantly longer when compared to that of both the unaffected hemisphere and HC hemispheres. No significant inter-hemispheric differences were found in areas, powers and latencies of HF-SEP wavelets. CONCLUSION: Our results demonstrate that TLE induces early interictal functional impairments of the thalamo-cortical network. SIGNIFICANCE: Our data strongly corroborates the vision of focal epilepsy as a network disorder and offers a new neurophysiological tool to test pharmacological, surgical and neuromodulatory therapies.
Authors: Giovanni Assenza; Cristofaro Nocerino; Mario Tombini; Giancarlo Di Gennaro; Alfredo D'Aniello; Alberto Verrotti; Alfonso Marrelli; Lorenzo Ricci; Jacopo Lanzone; Vincenzo Di Lazzaro; Leonilda Bilo; Antonietta Coppola Journal: Front Neurol Date: 2021-03-24 Impact factor: 4.003