Identification and effective connections of core networks in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and cognitive impairment: Granger causality analysis and multivariate pattern analysis

Abstract

Objective

This study aimed to explore effective connectivity (EC) of the core networks in cognition impairment associated with temporal lobe epilepsy (CI-TLE) by applying resting state and Granger causality analysis (REST-GCA). The specific brain regions that played a critical role in classification were assessed using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA).

Methods

Thirty-two patients with CI-TLE and 29 healthy controls who were matched based on age and gender underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Results

REST-GCA revealed that patients with CI-TLE displayed decreased GC values in the following brain areas: from the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) to the left fusiform gyrus (lFFG) and the right parahippocampal gyrus (rPPG); from the right dorsal prefrontal cortex (rDPFC) to the left superior parietal lobule (lSPL); from the left amygdala (lAG) to the PCC. Inhibitory EC was observed from the rDPFC to the PCC compared to HCs. The GC values increased from the right dorsal prefrontal cingulate cortex (rdACC) to the PCC and from the right dorsal forebrain insula (rDAI) to the right middle temporal gyrus (rMTG) in the CI-TLE patients. MVPA showed that the classification yielded an accuracy of 81.91% (78.12%, specificity =85.71%).

Conclusion

Our observations indicated that the abnormal EC between the frontal and parietal regions might be associated with the pathophysiological mechanism of CI-TLE. These results also indicated that EC might be play a role as a potential discriminative pattern to detect CI-TLE in patients.

Keywords:

• cognition impairment with temporal lobe epilepsy
• functional magnetic resonance imaging
• Granger causality analysis
• multivariate pattern analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all study participants. The authors also are grateful for access to the MATLAB and SPSS software. The authors would like to express their gratitude to mjeditor (https://www.mjeditor.com/index/pay/index.html) for the expert linguistic services provided.

Authors’ contributions

Yanchun Jiang conceived, and Jinou Zheng designed the study. Yanbo Zhang, Nie Liluo performed the research. Yanchun Jiang and HuihuaLiu contributed to data analysis. Yanchun Jiang and Huihua Liu supervised the data analysis. Yanchun Jiang wrote the original article. All authors reviewed and edited the manuscript and gave final approval of publication.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University Ethics Committee approved the study, and written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to this study [NO.伦审(2018-KY-国基-040)]. All the methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

All data are available on request to the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81560223) and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province (2018GXNSFAA050149). Professor ZJO designed the study.