Abstract #3454

Makki M, Chugani D, Chugani H

Synopsis: We performed DT-MRI on six patients with tuberous sclerosis complex and twelve age-matched normal control subjects to evaluate diffusivity and anisotropy in subcortical brain regions that are important in seizure propagation. We evaluated bilaterally the thalamus and the caudate nuclei that appear normal with conventional MRI to investigate whether they have microstructural abnormalities. Patients showed significantly increased diffusivity in the thalamus in both hemispheres when compared to normal controls. The increase in diffusivity was mainly due to a significant increase in direction orthogonal to the axons. Changes in diffusivity and anisotropy revealed in normal appearing brain tissues beyond the origin of TSC lesions may be important to help localize lesions in MRI negative patients.