Abstracts

Structural Imaging Findings in Juvenile Absence Epilepsy Patients and their Healthy Siblings

Abstract number : 1.25
Submission category : 5. Neuro Imaging / 5A. Structural Imaging
Year : 2022
Submission ID : 2204345
Source : www.aesnet.org
Presentation date : 12/3/2022 12:00:00 PM
Published date : Nov 22, 2022, 05:24 AM

Authors :
Fenglai Xiao, MD PhD – UCL; Luisa Delazer – UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology; Lorenzo Caciagli, MD, PHD – University of Pennsylvania; Christian Vollmar, MD, PHD – Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich – Epilepsy Centre Munich, Department of Neurology; Karin Trimmel, MD – Department of Neurology, Medical University Vienna; Maria Centeno, MD – Department of Neurology, Hospital Clinic Barcelona; John Duncan, MD – UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology; Matthias Koepp, MD, PHD – UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology; Britta Wandschneider, MD, PHD – UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology

Rationale: By definition, patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) have no obvious structural abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Previous studies reported predominantly fronto-cortico-thalamic  structural alterations in juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME), in mixed IGE samples, or in mixed absence epilepsy samples. Only one voxel-based morphometry (VBM) study was undertaken in juvenile absence epilepsy (JAE), and showed widespread frontal and subcortical reductions of grey matter (GM) volume. _x000D_ _x000D_ Here, we investigate patients with JAE using VBM to (1) identify potential structural imaging phenotypes, and also assess (2) their unaffected siblings, to establish whether such imaging phenotypes potentially have genetic underpinnings. _x000D_
Methods: We performed a VBM analysis of T1-weighted MRI scans in a prospectively acquired cohort of 23 patients with JAE, 17 unaffected siblings, and 28 healthy controls. We preprocessed data using standard  SPM 12 pipelines. We conducted group comparisons using full factorial analyses, covarying for age, sex and intracranial volume. We report our results at a statistical threshold of p< 0.001 and a cluster extent threshold of 50 voxels._x000D_
Neuro Imaging