Spectroscopic Imaging of Human Medial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy At 7T

Jullie W. Pan¹, Dennis D. Spencer¹, R. Bradley Duckrow², Nikolai Avdievich¹, Hoby P. Hetherington¹

The presence of unilateral hippocampal atrophy in the evaluation of medial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is often a defining factor that if concordant with the EEG and PET and not contraindicated from neuropsychological data, will typically result in candidacy for surgical resection. However, it is possible to have hippocampal atrophy (HA) without intractable seizures particularly in familial MTLE. We used ultra-high field MR spectroscopic imaging at 7T to assess MTLE with patients who are all HA positive. We studied n=12 patients who were medically intractable and n=2 patients who were very well controlled (seizure free for >2years on medication).