Current approaches to magnetic resonance imaging diagnosis of epileptogenic and associated lesions of the brain

Abstract

With the development of current neuroimaging techniques, their role in diagnosing epilepsy is becoming more significant and that is not only in identifying the disease that plays a key role in epileptogenesis, but also in assisting a clinician in the subsequent formulation of the diagnosis, in correcting drug therapy, and, in some cases, in addressing the issue of surgical treatment in the patient. The priority technique in this case is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that has high sensitivity and specificity in defining the location of minor and more major lesions of the brain structure and that includes a set of current sequences that can obtain important diagnostic information about the functional state of the brain. This article highlights the International League Against Epilepsy guidelines for MRI in patients with suspected epilepsy, assesses the use of and briefly characterizes both structural and functional pulse sequences that are most commonly included in the epileptological protocol. It considers major pathological processes and evaluates anatomical and functional changes in the brain structure, which play an important role in epileptogenesis.

Keywords

• epilepsy
• magnetic resonance imaging
• epileptologic protocol
• current neuroimaging techniques