An international research consortium used neuroimaging techniques to analyze the brains of more than 3,800 volunteers in different countries. The largest study of its kind ever conducted set out to investigate anatomical similarities and differences in the brains of individuals with different types of epilepsy and to seek markers that could help with prognosis and treatment.
Epilepsy's seizure frequency and severity, as well as the patient's response to drug therapy, vary with the part of the brain affected and other poorly understood factors. Data from the scientific literature suggests that roughly one-third of patients do not respond well to anti-epileptic drugs. Research has shown that these individuals are more likely to develop cognitive and behavioral impairments over the years.
The new study was conducted by a specific working group within an international consortium called ENIGMA, short for Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis, established to investigate several neurological and psychiatric diseases. Twenty-four cross-sectional samples from 14 countries were included in the epilepsy study.
Altogether, the study included data for 2,149 people with epilepsy and 1,727 healthy control subjects (with no neurological or psychiatric disorders). The Brazilian Research Institute for Neuroscience and Neurotechnology (BRAINN), which participated in the multicenter study, was the center with the largest sample, comprising 291 patients and 398 controls. Hosted in Brazil, at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), BRAINN is a Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center (RIDC http://cepid.fapesp.br/en/home/) supported by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP.
"Each center was responsible for collecting and analyzing data on its own patients. All the material was then sent to the University of Southern California's Imaging Genetics Center in the US, which consolidated the results and performed a meta-analysis," said Fernando Cendes, a professor at UNICAMP and coordinator of BRAINN.
A differential study
All volunteers were subjected to MRI scans. According to Cendes, a specific protocol was used to acquire three-dimensional images. "This permitted image post-processing with the aid of computer software, which segmented the images into thousands of anatomical points for individual assessment and comparison," he said.
According to the researcher, advances in neuroimaging techniques have enabled the detection of structural alterations in the brains of people with epilepsy that hadn't been noticed previously.
