Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment (Nov 2022)
Altered Cerebral Blood Flow is Linked to Disease Duration in Patients with Generalized tonic‒clonic Seizures
Abstract
Ting Li1,2 *, Shaowei Niu3 *, Xiang Qiu4 *, Zhaohua Zhai,2 Lin Yang,2 Li Chen,2 Xiao Ming Zhang1,2 1The First Affiliated Hospital, Jinan University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2Medical Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, and Department of Radiology, Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Infection, Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Radiology, Integrated TCM & Western Medicine Hospital Affiliated to Chengdu University of TCM, Chengdu First People’s Hospital, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Xiao Ming Zhang, Medical Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, and Department of Radiology, Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College, No. 234 Fujiang Road, Nanchong, People’s Republic of China, Tel/Fax +86 08172242635, Email [email protected]: To investigate cerebral blood flow (CBF) characteristics in individuals with generalized tonic‒clonic seizures (GTCS) during the interictal phase using voxel-based analysis of 3D pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling (PCASL).Patients and Methods: Patients with GTCS (GTCS group) (during the interictal period) and healthy volunteers (control group) underwent head MR imaging with a 3.0T MR scanner with a 3D PCASL sequence. CBF was compared between the two groups. Spearman correlations of CBF in regions of interest (ROIs) in GTCS patients with the duration of disease and age of onset were analyzed and corrected using the false discovery rate (FDR).Results: Twenty patients with GTCS (GTCS group) and twenty healthy volunteers (control group) were recruited for this study. On 3D PCASL, (1) GTCS patients had lower CBF in the brainstem, right cerebellum, right inferior temporal gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, triangular part of inferior frontal gyrus, left temporal pole of superior temporal gyrus and thalamus and had higher CBF in the bilateral superior parietal gyri, precuneus, precentral gyri, postcentral gyri, and left dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus than controls. (2) The CBF of the right temporal pole of the middle temporal gyrus was negatively correlated with the duration of disease (PFDRcorrected< 0.05), with a correlation coefficient r of − 0.7333 and a PFDRcorrected value of 0.04.Conclusion: Voxel-based analysis of 3D PCASL imaging can be used to sensitively detect brain perfusion differences in GTCS patients. The decrease in CBF in the right temporal pole of the middle temporal gyrus may be associated with disease onset. These findings may offer new perspectives on the pathogenesis of GTCS and the underlying pathophysiological changes associated with perfusion.Keywords: arterial spin labeling imaging, generalized tonic‒clonic epilepsy, magnetic resonance imaging, voxel-based analysis, perfusion
