Feature analysis of functional MRI for discrimination between normal and epileptogenic brain

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is the most common epilepsy syndrome in adults. As it is a focal disorder, i.e. limited to a particular area of the brain, it is often curable through surgery when drug therapies fail to control seizures. In order to ensure successful surgical outcome, the abnormal brain regions must be localized as accurately as possible to prevent the removal of healthy tissue. We report on a novel voxel-based procedure for discrimination between normal and epileptogenic brain tissue through feature analysis of continuous arterial spin labeling (ASL) perfusion functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Five TLE patients and three healthy controls were studied. Features were extracted from the fMRI time series of each subject to determine which individual features and combinations of features could correctly separate epileptogenic and normal brain tissue.