Neuropediatrics 2015; 46 - PS02-21
DOI: 10.1055/s-0035-1550733

Internetwork Connectivity Alterations in Children with Benign Epilepsy with Centrotemporal Spikes

M. Hubacher 1, N. Oser 2, I. Penner 1, J. Schneider 3, P. Weber 2, A. Datta 2
  • 1Department of Cognitive Psychology and Methodology University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
  • 2Department of Child Neurology and Developmental Medicine, University Children's Hospital (UKBB), Basel, Switzerland
  • 3Department of Pediatric Radiology, University Children's Hospital (UKBB), Basel, Switzerland

Aims: In children with benign epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS), changes within the default mode network (DMN) have been observed. This study aims to inspect the possible differences in internetwork connectivity between several brain networks (NW) in children with BECTS.

Methods: A total of 20 children with BECTS (range, 7.4–13 years) and 16 healthy controls (range, 7.5–13.3 years) underwent an fMRI investigation with sentence generation paradigms. An independent component analysis was calculated using the GIFT toolbox to decompose fMRI data into spatial independent patterns. Components reflecting the frontoparietal network (left and right), the DMN (ventral and dorsal part), the anterior salience network (ASN), and the auditory/language network (ALN) were afterward fed to the FNC toolbox to calculate individual correlation coefficients between the networks. Nonparametric tests were applied to compare connectivity between subgroups regarding lesion side.

Results: No significant differences in network connectivity were observed in the comparison between all BECTS children and the controls. However, by splitting participants into subgroups (epileptic focus: bilateral: N = 4; left: N = 5; and right: N = 11), participants with bilateral focus differed most from the healthy control group. They had significantly higher connectivity between the ALN and the ventral part of the DMN (z =  − 2.268; p = 0.022) as well as the ASN (z =  − 1.984; p = 0.05). Participants with a focus on the left side did not significantly differ from the control group. Patients with an epileptic focus on the right side were comparable to the control group except for a trend for weaker connectivity between the anterior salience NW and the ventral DMN (z =  − 1.826; p = 0.071).

Conclusion: The presented data show that alterations regarding functional NWs in BECTS go beyond simple DMN alterations. Furthermore, these alterations depend on epileptic foci. In children with bilateral foci, connections between NWs were mostly affected. Network alterations may represent cerebral reorganization processes possibly associated with neuropsychological deficits.

Keywords: BECTS, Brain networks connectivity.