Efficient organisation of the contralateral hemisphere connectome is associated with improvement in intelligence quotient after paediatric epilepsy surgery

Aims of epilepsy surgery in childhood include optimising seizure control and facilitating cognitive development. Predicting which children will improve cognitively is challenging. We investigated the association of the pre-operative structural connectome of the contralateral non-operated hemisphere with improvement in intelligence quotient (IQ) post-operatively.

Consecutive children who had undergone unilateral resective procedures for epilepsy at a single centre were retrospectively identified. We included those with pre-operative volume T1-weighted non-contrast brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), no visible contralateral MRI abnormalities, and both pre-operative and two years post-operative IQ assessment. The MRI of the hemisphere contralateral to the side of resection was anatomically parcellated into 34 cortical regions and the covariance of cortical thickness between regions was used to create binary and weighted group connectomes.

Eleven patients with a post-operative IQ increase of at least 10 points at two years were compared with twenty-four patients with no change in IQ score. Children who gained at least 10 IQ points post-operatively had a more efficiently structured contralateral hemisphere connectome with higher global efficiency (0.74) compared to those whose IQ did not change at two years (0.58, p = 0.014). This was consistent across thresholds and both binary and weighted networks. There were no statistically significant group differences in age, sex, age at onset of epilepsy, pre-operative IQ, mean cortical thickness, side or site of procedure, two year post-operative Engel scores or use of anti-seizure medications between the two groups.

Surgical procedures to reduce or stop seizures may allow children with an efficiently structured contralateral hemisphere to achieve their cognitive potential.