Department of Psychiatry, University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2012 Jan;18(1):57-67. doi: 10.1017/S1355617711001391. Epub 2011 Oct 12.
The objective of this study is to investigate the relationships among frontotemporal fiber tract compromise and task-switching performance in healthy controls and patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). We performed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) on 30 controls and 32 patients with TLE (15 left TLE). Fractional anisotropy (FA) was calculated for four fiber tracts [uncinate fasciculus (UncF), arcuate fasciculus (ArcF), dorsal cingulum (CING), and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF)]. Participants completed the Trail Making Test-B (TMT-B) and Verbal Fluency Category Switching (VFCS) test. Multivariate analyses of variances (MANOVAs) were performed to investigate group differences in fiber FA and set-shifting performances. Canonical correlations were used to examine the overall patterns of structural-cognitive relationships and were followed by within-group bivariate correlations. We found a significant canonical correlation between fiber FA and task-switching performance. In controls, TMT-B correlated with left IFOF, whereas VFCS correlated with FA of left ArcF and left UncF. These correlations were not significant in patients with TLE. We report significant correlations between frontotemporal fiber tract integrity and set-shifting performance in healthy controls that appear to be absent or attenuated in patients with TLE. These findings suggest a breakdown of typical structure-function relationships in TLE that may reflect aberrant developmental or degenerative processes.
本研究旨在探讨健康对照组和颞叶癫痫（TLE）患者的额颞纤维束损伤与任务转换表现之间的关系。我们对 30 名健康对照者和 32 名 TLE 患者（15 名左 TLE）进行了弥散张量成像（DTI）检查。计算了四个纤维束[钩束（UncF）、弓状束（ArcF）、背侧扣带束（CING）和下额枕束（IFOF）]的各向异性分数（FA）。参与者完成了连线测试 B（TMT-B）和言语流畅性类别转换（VFCS）测试。采用多元方差分析（MANOVA）来研究纤维 FA 和转换表现的组间差异。采用典型相关分析来检验结构-认知关系的整体模式，然后进行组内的二元相关分析。我们发现纤维 FA 与任务转换表现之间存在显著的典型相关性。在对照组中，TMT-B 与左侧 IFOF 相关，而 VFCS 与左侧 ArcF 和左侧 UncF 的 FA 相关。这些相关性在 TLE 患者中并不显著。我们报告了健康对照组中额颞纤维束完整性与转换表现之间的显著相关性，而在 TLE 患者中这种相关性似乎缺失或减弱。这些发现表明 TLE 中存在典型的结构-功能关系中断，这可能反映了异常的发育或退行性过程。
