Relation of callosal structure to cognitive abilities in temporal lobe epilepsy

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the influence of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE) on the morphology of the corpus callosum (CC) and its relation to cognitive abilities. More specifically, we investigated correlations between intellectual abilities and callosal morphology, while additionally exploring the modulating impact of (a) side of seizure onset (b) age of disease onset. For this reason a large representative sample of patients with hippocampal sclerosis (n = 79; 35 males; 44 females; age: 18-63 years) with disease onset ranging from 0 to 50 years of age, and consisting of 46 left and 33 right mTLE-patients was recruited. Intelligence was measured using the Wechsler-Adult Intelligence Scale Revised. To get localizations of correlations with high anatomic precision, callosal morphology was examined using computational mesh-based modeling methods, applied to anatomical brain MRI scans. Intellectual performance was positively associated with callosal thickness in anterior and midcallosal callosal regions, with anterior parts being slightly more affected by age of disease onset and side of seizure onset than posterior parts. Earlier age at onset of epilepsy was associated with lower thickness in anterior and midcallosal regions. In addition, laterality of seizure onset had a significant influence on anterior CC morphology, with left hemispheric origin having stronger effects. We found that in mTLE, anterior and midcallosal CC morphology are related to cognitive performance. The findings support recent findings of detrimental effects of early onset mTLE on anterior brain regions and of a distinct effect particularly of left mTLE on frontal lobe functioning and structure. The causal nature of the relationship remains an open question, i.e., whether CC morphology impacts IQ development or whether IQ development impacts CC morphology, or both.

Keywords: MRI; Wechsler-adult intelligence scale revised; corpus callosum; full-scale IQ; intelligence; temporal lobe epilepsy.

Figure 1

(A) Correlations between callosal thickness und full-scale IQ. The color bar encodes the significant p-values (p ≤ 0.05). Gray color indicates where no significant correlations were detected. The anterior callosal region is located on the left, the posterior callosal region points to the right. (B) Correlations between callosal thickness and full-scale IQ with age at disease onset as covariate. (C) Correlations between callosal thickness and full-scale IQ with hemisphere of seizure occurrence as covariate. (D) Correlations between callosal thickness and full-scale IQ with onset and hemisphere as covariates.