Functional MR Imaging in the Patients with Complex Partial Seizures

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the clinical usefulness of functional MR imaging (fMRI) for localization of the cerebral motor and sensory cortices and the language center in patients with complex partial seizure. Materials and Methods: A total of 47 fMRIs were obtained in 14 patients (M:F=9:5; age 15 -50 years; 13 right handed and 1 ambidextrous) with complex partial seizure (6 temporal lobe epilepsy, 6 frontal lobe epilepsy, 1 occipitotemporal lobe epilepsy, 1 hemispheric epilepsy). Conventional MR imaging revealed no abnormality in four patients, localized cerebral atrophy in one, hippocampal sclerosis in four, and benign neoplasm in the remaining five. fMRI was performed on a 1.5 T MR scanner (GE Signa Horizon) using gradient-echo single-shot EPI. Nineteen fMRIs were obtained in eight patients who performed the language task, 16 fMRIs in ten who performed the motor task and 12 fMRIs in ten who performed the somatosensory task. The activation task consisted of three language tasks (silent picture naming, word generation from a character, categorical word generation), motor tasks (opposition of thumb and index finger for hand/dorsiflexion or extension for foot), and sensory tasks (passive tactile stimulation of hand or foot using a toothbrush). The data were analyzed using z-score (p