Role of Resting State Functional Connectivity Mri in Presurgical Investigation of Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Gaelle Bettus^1,2, Fabrice Bartolomei², Sylviane Confort-Gouny¹, Eric Guedj¹, Patrick Chauvel², Patrick Cozzone¹, Jean-Philippe Ranjeva¹, Maxime Guye¹

We aimed at determining the ability of resting-state functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI) to lateralize/localize the epileptogenic zone in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) at the individual level. Basal functional connectivity (BFC) was evaluated in 22 MTLE patients compared to 36 controls using a single shot GE-EPI sequence at rest. In patients, BFC was characterized by bilateral decreases predominant in the epileptic side, and unilateral increases almost exclusively observed in the contralateral (non-epileptic) side. We suggest that fcMRI is a useful technique that could be added to the presurgical assessment of drug-resistant partial epilepsies.