Language lateralization from task-based and resting state functional MRI in patients with epilepsy.

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Epileptology
• Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

• Accurate language lateralization is crucial for epilepsy presurgical planning.
• Task-based fMRI is the standard, but resting-state fMRI (RS-fMRI) offers a potential alternative.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare language lateralization using RS-fMRI and task-based fMRI in epilepsy patients.
• To evaluate novel RS-fMRI methods for assessing language dominance.

Main Methods:

• Compared language laterality index (LI) from task fMRI and two RS-fMRI methods in 30 epilepsy patients.
• Analyzed LI using regional masks and varying connectivity thresholds.
• Assessed concordance of dominance classifications between methods.

Main Results:

• Significant positive correlations found between task and RS-fMRI LI at top 10% connectivity threshold.
• Dominance classification concordance ranged from 20% to 63% depending on RS-fMRI method.
• RS-fMRI showed less lateralized language dominance compared to task fMRI.

Conclusions:

• A relationship exists between task and RS-fMRI for language lateralization in epilepsy.
• RS-fMRI language dominance is less lateralized than task-based fMRI.
• RS-fMRI method choice and brain regions surveyed influence concordance for presurgical planning.