Evaluation of White Matter Integrity, Cortical Thickness & Volume of Subcortical Structures in Patients with Typical Absence Epilepsy

Thomas Martin Doring^1,2, Tadeu Takao Almodovar Kubo¹, Nina Ventura², Bernardo Bizzo², Emerson Leandro Gasparetto^1,2

Typical absence epilepsy is a transient impairment of consciousness, with sudden onset and interruption of ongoing activities lasting from a few seconds to half a minute. Conventional MRI findings are not able to identify impaired regions in the cerebrum. The purpose of this study was to perform an overall evaluation of white matter integrity, cortical thickness and the volume of subcortical structures that may detect alterations in these patients when comparing to healthy controls. Analysis was performed with FreeSurfer and TBSS (FSL) and it was shown that several regions in the brain are significantly (p<0.05) altered in patients with typical abscence epilepsy