High energy consumption characterizes abnormal brain state transitions in temporal lobe epilepsy

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Network Science
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) involves dynamic shifts between non-seizing and seizing brain states.
• The structural brain networks governing these state transitions in TLE are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the structural network mechanisms underlying brain state transitions in TLE.
• To compare brain transition energy and network characteristics between TLE patients and healthy participants (HPs).

Main Methods:

• Utilized resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) to detect dynamic brain states.
• Constructed linked structural brain networks from multi-shell diffusion-weighted MRI data.
• Applied network control theory to analyze brain state transition energy in TLE and HPs.

Main Results:

• Identified three specific brain state transitions requiring significantly higher energy in TLE patients compared to HPs.
• Observed no abnormally low-energy transitions in TLE patients.
• TLE transitions involved a restricted set of source/target regions, often outside the temporal lobe, unlike HPs.

Conclusions:

• TLE is associated with abnormal and inefficient structural brain network transitions.
• These network inefficiencies may result from seizure activity and contribute to cognitive deficits observed in TLE.