ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Applied Neuroimaging
This article is part of the Research TopicDiffusion-Weighted Imaging: Advances and Implementations in NeurologyView all 16 articles
Disrupted Modular and Hub Topology in Right Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: A Multimodal MRI Network Analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1People's Hospital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, NingXia Medical University, Yinchuan, China
- 2First Affiliated Hospital, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, China
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Right temporal lobe epilepsy (rTLE) is associated with disruptions in functional brain networks and structural connectivity, yet underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This study investigated alterations in modular interactions, connector hub (CH) topology, and related structural changes in rTLE patients. It included 30 rTLE patients and 30 matched healthy controls (HCs), all of whom underwent resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI), diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), and volumetric MRI (vMRI). Functional networks assessed modular interactions, functional connectivity (FC), and CH topological properties. White matter microstructural differences were examined using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS), while cortical morphometry was evaluated in key CH regions. Compared to HCs, rTLE patients showed reduced modularity (Q), small-world index (σ), and clustering coefficient (γ), along with enhanced modular interactions, particularly between the supplementary motor area (SMA) and inferior temporal gyrus (ITG). CHs exhibited increased participation coefficient (PC), within-module degree z-score (WMD), and local efficiency. Structural analyses revealed reduced fractional anisotropy (FA), increased radial diffusivity (RD) in the corpus callosum, and cortical thinning in the ITG and SMA. We confirmed that rTLE is characterized by disrupted modular architecture and CH topology, leading to network reorganization and structural abnormalities. These findings offer insights into rTLE pathophysiology.
Keywords: Right temporal lobe epilepsy, multimodal MRI, brain network, functional connectivity, Neuroimaging, topology
Received: 25 Apr 2025; Accepted: 11 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Qu, Zheng, Chen, Luo, Huang and Fan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jinou Zheng
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