Hemodynamic changes in simple partial epilepsy: A functional MRI study

Abstract

We performed functional MRI (fMRI) on a patient with a mass lesion while she happened to experience a simple partial seizure. We used regional T2* signal changes to localize seizure-related hemodynamic changes. Seizure activity was associated with changes in MR signal in different regions that showed sequential activation and deactivation. Our study has shown that epileptic activity leads to changes in cerebral hemodynamics. In selected patients, therefore, it might be possible to use fMRI as a noninvasive tool to detect and investigate cortical patterns of activation associated with seizure activity.