AUTHOR=Yu Yadong , Qiu Mengdi , Zou Wenwei , Zhao Ying , Tang Yan , Tian Jisha , Chen Xiaoyu , Qiu Wenchao 

TITLE=Impaired rich-club connectivity in childhood absence epilepsy

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2023.1135305

DOI=10.3389/fneur.2023.1135305

ISSN=1664-2295

ABSTRACT=Childhood absence epilepsy (CAE) is a well-known pediatric epilepsy syndrome. Recent evidences have shown the presence of a disrupted structural brain network in CAE. However, little is known about the rich club topology. This study aimed to explore the rich club alterations in CAE and their association with clinical characteristics. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) dataset were acquired in a sample of thirty CAE patients and thirty-one healthy controls. Structural network was derived from DTI data for each participant using probabilistic tractography. Then, rich club organization was examined and the network connections were divided into rich club connections, feeder connections and local connections. Our results confirmed a less dense whole brain structural network in CAE with lower network strength and global efficiency. In addition, the optimal organization of small-worldness was also damaged. A small number of highly connected and central brain regions were identified to form the rich club organization in both patients and controls. However, patients exhibited a significantly reduced rich club connectivity while other class of feeder and local connections were relatively spared. Moreover, the lower levels of rich club connectivity strength were statistically correlated with disease duration. Our reports suggest that CAE is characterized by abnormal connectivity concentrated to rich club organization and might contribute to understand the pathophysiological mechanism of CAE.