Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, 45229, USA.
Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 45267, USA.
Brain Imaging Behav. 2021 Oct;15(5):2513-2523. doi: 10.1007/s11682-021-00452-5. Epub 2021 Feb 2.
Adolescents with epilepsy are at risk for deficits in working memory, which could lead to learning difficulties and poor academic outcomes. We used task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine potential disruption in working memory function in adolescents with epilepsy as compared to healthy controls. We recruited 29 adolescents (13-17 years) with non-lesional epilepsy and 20 healthy controls. All participants performed an N-back fMRI task and neuropsychological testing. A general linear model approach was used to create group activation maps of N-back fMRI for epilepsy and control groups and both groups combined (p < 0.05 corrected for multiple comparisons). Functionally defined regions of interest (ROIs) were identified based on clusters of combined group activation (z > 5). Subsets of these functional ROIs corresponding to cingulo-opercular and fronto-parietal networks were selected and differences in functional connectivity between the epilepsy and control groups were assessed. Adolescents with epilepsy had significantly poorer working memory scores compared to controls. For the N-back fMRI task, there were no significant differences in group activation. Functional connectivity was significantly reduced between the left frontal operculum and anterior cingulate gyrus (cingulo-opercular network) in adolescents with epilepsy compared to controls. This study demonstrates working memory deficits and an altered pattern of connectivity in brain networks supporting working memory in adolescents with epilepsy. Working memory performance was worse in adolescents with epilepsy; though scores were not directly correlated with reduced connectivity. These results suggest the neural substrates of working memory in adolescents with epilepsy may differ from those in typically-developing adolescents, and require further investigation to understand the reasons for poorer working memory performance.
青少年癫痫患者存在工作记忆缺陷的风险，这可能导致学习困难和学业成绩不佳。我们使用基于任务的功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 检查了癫痫青少年与健康对照组相比，工作记忆功能潜在的障碍。我们招募了 29 名（13-17 岁）非病变性癫痫青少年和 20 名健康对照者。所有参与者都进行了 N-back fMRI 任务和神经心理学测试。采用一般线性模型方法为癫痫组和对照组以及两组合并组 (p < 0.05，经多重比较校正) 创建 N-back fMRI 的组激活图。根据合并组激活的聚类，确定了功能定义的感兴趣区域 (ROI)。这些功能 ROI 的子集对应扣带 - 顶叶和额 - 顶叶网络，评估了癫痫组和对照组之间功能连接的差异。癫痫青少年的工作记忆评分明显低于对照组。对于 N-back fMRI 任务，组间激活没有显著差异。与对照组相比，癫痫青少年的左额前回和前扣带回之间的功能连接明显减少 (扣带 - 顶叶网络)。这项研究表明，癫痫青少年存在工作记忆缺陷和支持工作记忆的大脑网络连接模式改变。癫痫青少年的工作记忆表现更差；尽管分数与连通性降低没有直接相关性。这些结果表明，癫痫青少年的工作记忆神经基础可能与正常发育青少年的不同，需要进一步研究以了解工作记忆表现较差的原因。
