AUTHOR=Tan Linjie , Tang Haoling , Luo Hua , Chen Xiu , Zheng Zhong , Ruan Jianghai , Zhang Dechou 

TITLE=Exploring brain network oscillations during seizures in drug-naïve patients with juvenile absence epilepsy

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology

VOLUME=Volume 15 - 2024

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2024.1340959

DOI=10.3389/fneur.2024.1340959

ISSN=1664-2295

ABSTRACT=We aimed to investigate the brain network activity during seizures in patients with untreated juvenile absence epilepsy.Methods: Thirty-six juvenile absence epilepsy (JAE) patients with a current high frequency of seizures (more than five seizures during a two-hour EEG examination) were included. Each participant underwent a two-hour video EEG examination. Five 10-second EEG epochs for inter-ictal, pre-ictal, post-ictal, and five 5-second EEG epochs for ictal states were extracted, respectively. Five 10-second resting-state EEG epochs for each participant from a sex-and age-matched healthy control (HC) were enrolled. The topological parameters of the brain networks were calculated using graph theory analysis. Results: Compared with the resting state of the HC group, the global efficiency, local efficiency, and clustering coefficients of the JAE group decreased in the inter-ictal state. In addition, the ictal state showed significantly increased global and local efficiency and clustering coefficients (p<0.05) and declined small-world index and shortest path length (p<0.05) in theta and alpha bands, compared to the remaining states within the JAE group. Moreover, subgroup analysis revealed that those JAE patients with typical 3Hz discharges had upgraded global efficiency, local efficiency, and clustering coefficients in both delta and beta1 bands, compared to those JAE patients with non-3Hz discharges during seizures.The present study supported the idea that the changes in EEG brain networks in JAE patients are characterized by decreased global and local efficiency and clustering coefficient in the alpha band. Moreover, the onset of seizures is accompanied by excessively enhanced network efficiency. JAE patients with different ictal discharge patterns may have different functional network oscillations.