Brain Research Institute, Florey Neuroscience Institutes, Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia.
Epilepsy Res. 2012 May;99(3):327-34. doi: 10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2011.12.014. Epub 2012 Jan 24.
Functional imaging studies have identified a common network of brain regions that activate and deactivate during the generalised spike wave (GSW) discharges of childhood absence epilepsy (CAE). Functional connectivity within this network is also altered during the resting state. In this study our aim was to assess functional connectivity throughout the whole brain of patients with CAE.
We studied a group of eleven patients with untreated CAE and eleven matched controls using resting-state fMRI. We measured functional connectivity between every pair of voxels and generated images of "whole-brain" functional connectivity by counting the number of functional connections of each voxel.
There were marked differences between CAE patients and controls in whole brain functional connectivity. The patients had decreased connectivity in the thalamus and basal ganglia and increased connectivity in the medial occipital cortex.
These findings suggest enduring changes in function of the thalamus and the cortex in CAE patients even when there is no GSW activity. These human functional connectivity data support the findings in animal models of involvement of cortex as well as thalamus in absence epilepsy.
功能成像研究已经确定了一个在儿童失神癫痫（CAE）全面棘慢波放电期间激活和失活的大脑区域的通用网络。该网络中的功能连接在静息状态下也会发生改变。在这项研究中，我们的目的是评估 CAE 患者整个大脑的功能连接。
我们使用静息态 fMRI 研究了一组 11 名未经治疗的 CAE 患者和 11 名匹配的对照者。我们测量了每个体素对之间的功能连接，并通过计数每个体素的功能连接数生成“全脑”功能连接图像。
CAE 患者和对照组在全脑功能连接方面存在显著差异。患者的丘脑和基底节的连接减少，而中枕叶皮质的连接增加。
这些发现表明，即使在没有棘慢波活动的情况下，CAE 患者的丘脑和皮层功能也会发生持久变化。这些人类功能连接数据支持了皮层以及丘脑在失神癫痫动物模型中参与的发现。
