Imaging Science and Photochemistry ›› 2020, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (3): 441-446.DOI: 10.7517/issn.1674-0475.191007

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Application of rfMRI in the Evaluation of Treatment Effect in Patients with Primary Epilepsy

HUANG Kaiping1,2, WANG Rongfen3, LIU Yunsheng4   

  1. 1. Department of Radiology, Children's Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400014, P. R China;
    2. The Ministry of Education Key laboratory of Child Development Disease Research, National Clinical Research Center for Child Health and Disorders, China International Science and Technology Cooperation Base of Child development and Critical Disorders, Chongqing Key Laboratory of Pediatrics, Chongqing 400014, P. R China;
    3. Department of Radiology, Chongqing Orthopaedic Hospital, Chongqing 400010, P. R China;
    4. Department of Radiology, Dianjiang Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chongqing 408300, P. R China
  • Received:2019-10-14 Online:2020-05-15 Published:2020-05-15

Abstract: In this paper, we investigated the application of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rfMRI) in the evaluation of the therapeutic effect of first-episode primary epilepsy patients. A total of 62 patients with primary epilepsy (observation group) and 62 healthy volunteers (control group) who came to our hospital from August 2017 to August 2018 were enrolled. The two groups were subjected to rfMRI examination, and the observation group patients were again subjected to rfMRI examination after a 3-month medical treatment. The whole brain ratio low frequency amplitude (fALFF) value of each subject was calculated, and the data of the observation group before and after treatment were compared with the control group. Before treatment, the fALFF values of bilateral thalamus, bilateral posterior cingulate gyrus, left anterior horn and left anterior lobule were significantly higher in the observation group than in the control group (P<0.05); the fALFF values of bilateral prefrontal lobe and bilateral anterior cingulate gyrus in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P<0.05). After treatment, the abnormal activation of the bilateral thalamus areas in the observation group disappeared compared with the control group, and the range of abnormal activation of the bilateral posterior cingulate gyrus and left anterior gyrus in the observation group was reduced. However, the range of left parietal lobe activation brain area became larger (P<0.05). The fALFF values of the bilateral frontal lobe, bilateral anterior wedge and left wedge were significantly higher in the observation group than those in control group (P<0.05). The application of rfMRI combined with fALFF can effectively observe the changes of brain function in patients with primary epilepsy before and after treatment, and also provide a reference for the evaluation of clinical drug treatment for epilepsy.

Key words: resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging(rfMRI), primary epilepsy, therapeutic effect