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. 2025 Feb 27:14:100640.
doi: 10.1016/j.ejro.2025.100640. eCollection 2025 Jun.

Neurochemical characteristics of pathological tissues in epilepsy: A preliminary 1H MR spectroscopy study at 7 T

Lijing Xin  1 , Philippe Reymond  2 , José Boto  2 , Frederic Grouiller  3   4 , Serge Vulliemoz  5 , Francois Lazeyras  4 , Maria Isabel Vargas  6
Affiliations

Neurochemical characteristics of pathological tissues in epilepsy: A preliminary 1H MR spectroscopy study at 7 T

Lijing Xin et al. Eur J Radiol Open. .

Abstract

Background and purpose: This study aims to evaluate the neurochemical characteristics of pathological tissues by 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in patient with pharmaco-resistant focal epilepsy at 7 T.

Methods: Thirteen patients with drug-resistant epilepsy and focal seizure successfully underwent MRS examinations at 7 T MRI scanners. 1H MR spectra were acquired from two voxels (lesion side and contralateral side) using the semi-adiabatic spin-echo full-intensity localized spectroscopy (sSPECIAL) sequence. Metabolite levels were quantified from LCModel and reported as to total creatine ratio.

Results: In comparison to the contralateral side, lesions in focal cortical dysplasia demonstrated significantly reduced macromolecule and N-acetyl aspartate, significantly increased total choline and glycine + myo-inositol, and a distinct reduction trend of glutamate.

Conclusions: We conclude that performing MRS at high magnetic field offered the potential to reveal metabolic alterations in epilepsy lesions that may help to further understand the underlying pathophysiology of the disease.

Keywords: 7 T; Cortical dysplasia; Epilepsy; MR spectroscopy; Non lesional.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
MRS voxel positions and 1H MR spectra from the control and lesion side of patient #2 with focal cortical dysplasia. Glu: glutamate, NAA: N-acetyl aspartate, tCr: creatine+phosphocreatine, tCho, total choline, Ins: myo-inositol.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Neurochemical changes between lesion and contralateral side in epilepsy patients with the focal cortical dysplasia and MRI non-detectable lesion (* p < 0.05, + p = 0.057). The plot shows the mean percentage difference between lesion and contralateral side and error bars represent standard errors of the mean.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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