Advanced diffusion imaging sequences could aid assessing patients with focal cortical dysplasia and epilepsy☆

Highlights • Malformations of cortical development are a common cause of refractory epilepsy.• They are often invisible on structural imaging and only detected following surgery.• We assess a novel diffusion imaging technique (NODDI) in patients with dysplasia.• This shows more conspicuous changes than other clinical or diffusion scans.• This technique may assist the identification of FCD in patients with epilepsy.

[1]  Mahinda Yogarajah,et al.  Automated normalized FLAIR imaging in MRI‐negative patients with refractory focal epilepsy , 2009, Epilepsia.

[2]  A J Barkovich,et al.  Neuroimaging of focal malformations of cortical development. , 1996, Journal of clinical neurophysiology : official publication of the American Electroencephalographic Society.

[3]  John S. Duncan,et al.  Imaging in the surgical treatment of epilepsy , 2010, Nature Reviews Neurology.

[4]  B. Pogue,et al.  Automated region detection based on the contrast-to-noise ratio in near-infrared tomography. , 2004, Applied optics.

[5]  Barkovich Aj,et al.  Neuroimaging of focal malformations of cortical development. , 1996 .

[6]  Daniel C. Alexander,et al.  NODDI: Practical in vivo neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging of the human brain , 2012, NeuroImage.

[7]  M. Symms,et al.  Diffusion tensor imaging in patients with epilepsy and malformations of cortical development. , 2001, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[8]  H. Lüders,et al.  Seizure outcome after epilepsy surgery in patients with normal preoperative MRI , 2005, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.

[9]  Maria Thom,et al.  The clinicopathologic spectrum of focal cortical dysplasias: A consensus classification proposed by an ad hoc Task Force of the ILAE Diagnostic Methods Commission 1 , 2011, Epilepsia.

[10]  J. Golden,et al.  Polymicrogyria Includes Fusion of the Molecular Layer and Decreased Neuronal Populations But Normal Cortical Laminar Organization , 2011, Journal of neuropathology and experimental neurology.

[11]  Mark F. Lythgoe,et al.  Compartment models of the diffusion MR signal in brain white matter: A taxonomy and comparison , 2012, NeuroImage.

[12]  D. Alexander A general framework for experiment design in diffusion MRI and its application in measuring direct tissue‐microstructure features , 2008, Magnetic resonance in medicine.

[13]  L. Vargova,et al.  The diffusion parameters of the extracellular space are altered in focal cortical dysplasias , 2011, Neuroscience Letters.

[14]  Daniel C Alexander,et al.  Optimal acquisition orders of diffusion‐weighted MRI measurements , 2007, Journal of magnetic resonance imaging : JMRI.