Jeong-Won Jeong1,2, Eishi Asano1, Csaba Juhasz1,2, and Harry T. Chugani1,2
1Pediatrics and Neurology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, United States, 2Translational Imaging Laboratory, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Detroit, MI, United States
Both ictal and interictal epileptic activities can lead to
progressive deterioration of affected brain structure and function with an
additional indirect impairment of functional reorganization (or compensation)
in no-epileptic areas. This study applies whole brain
connectome analysis for children with intractable focal epilepsy in order to
investigate the potential effect of epilepsy surgery and surgical outcome on
the pattern of axonal plasticity in the contralateral hemisphere. We found that post-operative seizures are
associated with increased connectivity, most pronounced in the temporal pole
region of the contralateral hemisphere. Such increased connectivity may be an
imaging marker of recurrent epilepsy after focal cortical resection.