Division of Pediatric Neurology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
Epilepsy Behav. 2011 May;21(1):65-70. doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2011.03.016. Epub 2011 Apr 15.
The superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) II and cingulum are two white matter tracts important for attention and other frontal lobe functions. These functions are often disturbed in children with drug-resistant (DR) partial epilepsy, even when no abnormalities are seen on conventional MRI. We set out to determine whether abnormalities in these structures might be depicted on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies in the absence of abnormalities on conventional MRI. We compared the DTI findings of 12 children with DR partial epilepsy with those of 12 age- and gender-matched controls. We found that the SLF II fractional anisotropy (FA) values of the patients were significantly lower than those of the controls (means: 0.398±0.057 and 0.443±0.059, respectively, P=0.002). Similarly, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and parallel diffusivity values for SLF II were also significantly lower in the patients. There were no differences in the FA and ADC values of the cingulum. Our findings are consistent with abnormal structural connectivity of the frontal lobe in children with DR partial epilepsy and provide a possible explanation for the previously reported functional abnormalities related to the SLF II in these patients.
上纵束（SLF） II 和扣带束是两个对注意力和其他额叶功能很重要的白质束。这些功能在耐药（DR）部分性癫痫儿童中经常受到干扰，即使在常规 MRI 上没有发现异常。我们着手确定这些结构的异常是否可能在常规 MRI 无异常的情况下通过弥散张量成像（DTI）研究显示出来。我们比较了 12 例 DR 部分性癫痫患儿和 12 例年龄和性别匹配的对照组的 DTI 结果。我们发现，患者的 SLF II 各向异性分数（FA）值明显低于对照组（平均值分别为 0.398±0.057 和 0.443±0.059，P=0.002）。同样，SLF II 的表观扩散系数（ADC）和平行扩散值也明显较低。扣带束的 FA 和 ADC 值没有差异。我们的发现与 DR 部分性癫痫患儿额叶结构连接异常一致，并为之前报道的与这些患者 SLF II 相关的功能异常提供了可能的解释。
