BRAIN STRUCTURE WITH 7 TESLA MRI IN EPILEPSY

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The overall goal of this project is to examine brain gray matter and white matter structure in adults with epilepsy, using 7 Tesla MRI, in order to test the hypothesis that the detection of relevant lesions will improve at 7T. Background. Current clinical imaging techniques have not detected and non-invasively diagnosed all relevant cerebral lesions. Many patients with epilepsy have normal brain MRI with current imaging protocols. The significant increase in signal to noise ratio at 7 Tesla provides improved spatial resolution and improved tissue contrast which may support increased sensitivity and specificity of lesion detection and characterization in epilepsy. Main Hypotheses 1) In an epilepsy sub-group with normal cerebral 3 T MRI, cerebral structural abnormalities can be detected with 7 T MRI. 2) In a sub-group with cerebral lesions on 3 T MRI, additional structural information concerning the lesions will be provided at 7 T. 3) In both sub-groups, fiber tracts of the limbic system ipsilateral to the ictal onset zone will be reduced in volume compared with those of the healthy adult subjects. The primary objectives of this study include the acquisition of very high spatial resolution T1w, T2w and SWI images in 10 control healthy volunteers and 20 fully diagnosed adult epileptic patients (10 with normal 3T MRI, 10 with cerebral lesions on 3T MRI). DTI data will be collected and fiber tract analysis will be performed in the selected regions of interest. These data will be analyzed qualitatively and volumetrically in order to test our hypotheses.