Processing speed dysfunction is associated with functional corticostriatal circuit alterations in childhood epilepsy...

Epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (ECTS) is the most common epilepsy syndrome in children and usually presents with cognitive dysfunctions. However, little is known about the processing speed dysfunction and the associated neuroimaging mechanism in ECTS. This study aims to investigate the brain functional abnormality of processing speed dysfunction in ECTS patients by using the ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI).

This prospective study recruited twenty-eight ECTS patients who underwent the ¹⁸F-FDG PET, rs-fMRI, and neuropsychological examinations. Twenty children with extracranial tumors were included as PET controls, and 20 healthy children were recruited as MRI controls. The PET image analysis investigated glucose metabolism by determining standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR). The MRI image analysis explored abnormal functional connectivity (FC) within the cortical-striatal circuit through network-based statistical (NBS) analysis. Correlation analysis was performed to explore the relationship between SUVR, FC, and processing speed index (PSI).

Compared with healthy controls, ECTS patients showed normal intelligence quotient but significantly decreased PSI (P = 0.04). PET analysis showed significantly decreased SUVRs within bilateral caudate, putamen, pallidum, left NAc, right rostral middle frontal gyrus, and frontal pole of ECTS patients (P < 0.05). Rs-fMRI analysis showed absolute values of 20 FCs were significantly decreased in ECTS patients compared with MRI controls, which connected 16 distinct ROIs. The average SUVR of right caudate and the average of 20 FCs were positively correlated with PSI in ECTS patients (P = 0.034 and P = 0.005, respectively).

This study indicated that ECTS patients presented significantly reduced PSI, which is closely associated with decreased SUVR and FC of cortical-striatal circuit. Caudate played an important role in processing speed dysfunction.

NCT04954729; registered on July 8, 2021, public site, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04954729.