Michael Deppe1, Christoph Kellinghaus1, Thomas Duning1, Gabriel Mddel1, Siawoosh Mohammadi1, Katja Deppe2, Harald Kugel3, Simon S. Keller4, E. Bernd Ringelstein1, Stefan Knecht1
1Neurology, University of Mnster, Mnster, Germany; 2Neurology, Franz Hospital Dlmen, Germany; 3Radiology, University of Mnster, Germany; 4MARIARC, University of Liverpool, UK
Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) is a syndrome of idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) without structural brain abnormalities detectable by MRI or computed tomography. In the present study, we addressed the question of whether diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) can detect disease specific white matter (WM) abnormalities in JME patients. Our results support the hypothesis that JME is associated with abnormalities of the thalamocortical network that can be detected by DTI. The alterations of the nerve fibers associated with the anterior thalamus seem to be (1) a marker for disease severity in JME and (2) no epiphenomenon of medication effects.