[The role of the magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy].

Epilepsy is the most common neurological disease. Depending on the site of the origin of seizures epilepsy may be divided into the focal and generalised forms. Partial epilepsy most often occurs in the drug-resistant form, the most frequent variant of which is temporal lobe epilepsy--TLE. In the case of focal lesions the removal of the area responsible for the origin of seizures may result in good therapeutic outcome. It is, therefore, necessary to precisely localise an epileptogenic focus. This may be achieved using neuropsychological tests, electroencephalography (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI). There is a considerable group of patients in whom the cause of the disease is a subtle structural lesion that could not be found using CT or MRI, or a functional cause. In such cases novel techniques are used that show functional causes, e.g. the change in blood perfusion, cellular components concentration or neurotransmitter binding. Those techniques involve: functional MR, PET, SPECT, dMR and MRS. Due to the limitations of other methods magnetic resonance spectroscopy has played an increasing role in the imaging diagnostics of epilepsy. MRS is a non-invasive method of the assessment of the chemical composition of a tissue sample. In persons with epilepsy HMRS of the hippocampus may show the changes in specific metabolites. Several studies have also shown that HMRS is a useful non-invasive method of monitoring the response to anti-epileptic drugs.