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. 2018 Feb 1;141(2):391-408.
doi: 10.1093/brain/awx341.

Structural brain abnormalities in the common epilepsies assessed in a worldwide ENIGMA study

Christopher D Whelan  1   2 Andre Altmann  3 Juan A Botía  4 Neda Jahanshad  1 Derrek P Hibar  1 Julie Absil  5 Saud Alhusaini  2   6 Marina K M Alvim  7 Pia Auvinen  8   9 Emanuele Bartolini  10   11 Felipe P G Bergo  7 Tauana Bernardes  7 Karen Blackmon  12   13 Barbara Braga  7 Maria Eugenia Caligiuri  14 Anna Calvo  15 Sarah J Carr  16 Jian Chen  17 Shuai Chen  18   19 Andrea Cherubini  14 Philippe David  5 Martin Domin  20 Sonya Foley  21 Wendy França  7 Gerrit Haaker  22   23 Dmitry Isaev  1 Simon S Keller  24 Raviteja Kotikalapudi  25   26 Magdalena A Kowalczyk  27 Ruben Kuzniecky  12 Soenke Langner  20 Matteo Lenge  10 Kelly M Leyden  28   29 Min Liu  30 Richard Q Loi  28   29 Pascal Martin  25 Mario Mascalchi  31   32 Marcia E Morita  7 Jose C Pariente  15 Raul Rodríguez-Cruces  33 Christian Rummel  34 Taavi Saavalainen  9   35 Mira K Semmelroch  27 Mariasavina Severino  36 Rhys H Thomas  37   38 Manuela Tondelli  39 Domenico Tortora  36 Anna Elisabetta Vaudano  39 Lucy Vivash  40   41 Felix von Podewils  42 Jan Wagner  43   44 Bernd Weber  43   45 Yi Yao  46 Clarissa L Yasuda  7 Guohao Zhang  47 Nuria Bargalló  15   48 Benjamin Bender  26 Neda Bernasconi  30 Andrea Bernasconi  30 Boris C Bernhardt  30   49 Ingmar Blümcke  23 Chad Carlson  12   50 Gianpiero L Cavalleri  2   51 Fernando Cendes  7 Luis Concha  33 Norman Delanty  2   51   52 Chantal Depondt  53 Orrin Devinsky  12 Colin P Doherty  51   54 Niels K Focke  25   55 Antonio Gambardella  14   56 Renzo Guerrini  10   11 Khalid Hamandi  37   38 Graeme D Jackson  27   57 Reetta Kälviäinen  8   9 Peter Kochunov  58 Patrick Kwan  41 Angelo Labate  14   56 Carrie R McDonald  28   29 Stefano Meletti  39 Terence J O'Brien  41   59 Sebastien Ourselin  3 Mark P Richardson  16   60 Pasquale Striano  61 Thomas Thesen  12   13 Roland Wiest  34 Junsong Zhang  18   19 Annamaria Vezzani  62 Mina Ryten  4   63 Paul M Thompson  1 Sanjay M Sisodiya  64   65
Affiliations

Structural brain abnormalities in the common epilepsies assessed in a worldwide ENIGMA study

Christopher D Whelan et al. Brain. .

Abstract

Progressive functional decline in the epilepsies is largely unexplained. We formed the ENIGMA-Epilepsy consortium to understand factors that influence brain measures in epilepsy, pooling data from 24 research centres in 14 countries across Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Australia. Structural brain measures were extracted from MRI brain scans across 2149 individuals with epilepsy, divided into four epilepsy subgroups including idiopathic generalized epilepsies (n =367), mesial temporal lobe epilepsies with hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE; left, n = 415; right, n = 339), and all other epilepsies in aggregate (n = 1026), and compared to 1727 matched healthy controls. We ranked brain structures in order of greatest differences between patients and controls, by meta-analysing effect sizes across 16 subcortical and 68 cortical brain regions. We also tested effects of duration of disease, age at onset, and age-by-diagnosis interactions on structural measures. We observed widespread patterns of altered subcortical volume and reduced cortical grey matter thickness. Compared to controls, all epilepsy groups showed lower volume in the right thalamus (Cohen's d = -0.24 to -0.73; P < 1.49 × 10-4), and lower thickness in the precentral gyri bilaterally (d = -0.34 to -0.52; P < 4.31 × 10-6). Both MTLE subgroups showed profound volume reduction in the ipsilateral hippocampus (d = -1.73 to -1.91, P < 1.4 × 10-19), and lower thickness in extrahippocampal cortical regions, including the precentral and paracentral gyri, compared to controls (d = -0.36 to -0.52; P < 1.49 × 10-4). Thickness differences of the ipsilateral temporopolar, parahippocampal, entorhinal, and fusiform gyri, contralateral pars triangularis, and bilateral precuneus, superior frontal and caudal middle frontal gyri were observed in left, but not right, MTLE (d = -0.29 to -0.54; P < 1.49 × 10-4). Contrastingly, thickness differences of the ipsilateral pars opercularis, and contralateral transverse temporal gyrus, were observed in right, but not left, MTLE (d = -0.27 to -0.51; P < 1.49 × 10-4). Lower subcortical volume and cortical thickness associated with a longer duration of epilepsy in the all-epilepsies, all-other-epilepsies, and right MTLE groups (beta, b < -0.0018; P < 1.49 × 10-4). In the largest neuroimaging study of epilepsy to date, we provide information on the common epilepsies that could not be realistically acquired in any other way. Our study provides a robust ranking of brain measures that can be further targeted for study in genetic and neuropathological studies. This worldwide initiative identifies patterns of shared grey matter reduction across epilepsy syndromes, and distinctive abnormalities between epilepsy syndromes, which inform our understanding of epilepsy as a network disorder, and indicate that certain epilepsy syndromes involve more widespread structural compromise than previously assumed.

Keywords: MRI; epilepsy; precentral gyrus; thalamus.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study flowchart. ILAE = International League Against Epilepsy; MOU = memorandum of understanding.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Subcortical volume findings. Cohen’s d effect size estimates for case-control differences in subcortical volume, across the (A) all-epilepsies, (B) mesial temporal lobe epilepsies with left hippocampal sclerosis (HS; MTLE-L), (C) mesial temporal lobe epilepsies with right hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-R), (D) idiopathic generalized epilepsies (IGE), and (E) all-other-epilepsies groups. Cohen’s d effect sizes were extracted using multiple linear regressions, and pooled across research centres using random-effects meta-analysis. Subcortical structures with P-values < 1.49 × 10−4 are shown in heatmap colours; strength of heat map is determined by the size of the Cohen’s d (d < 0 = blue, d > 0 = yellow/red). Image generated using MATLAB, with annotations added using Adobe Photoshop. An interactive version of this figure is available online, via ‘ENIGMA-Viewer’: http://enigma-viewer.org/ENIGMA_epilepsy_subcortical.html. See Supplementary material for guidelines on how to use the interactive visualization.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Cortical thickness findings. Cohen’s d effect size estimates for case-control differences in cortical thickness, across the (A) all-epilepsies, (B) mesial temporal lobe epilepsies with left hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-L), (C) mesial temporal lobe epilepsies with right hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-R), (D) idiopathic generalized epilepsies (IGE), and (E) all-other-epilepsies groups. Cohen’s d effect sizes were extracted using multiple linear regressions, and pooled across research centres using random-effects meta-analysis. Cortical structures with P-values < 1.49 × 10−4 are shown in heatmap colours; strength of heat map is determined by the size of the Cohen’s d (d < 0 = blue, d > 0 = yellow/red). Image generated using MATLAB with annotations added using Adobe Photoshop. An interactive version of this figure is available online, via ‘ENIGMA-Viewer’: http://enigma-viewer.org/ENIGMA_epilepsy_cortical.html. See Supplementary material for guidelines on how to use the interactive visualization. HS = hippocampal sclerosis.

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