Diffusion kurtosis imaging study of childhood epilepsy with and without motor coordination problems

Abstract

　We evaluated whether magnetic resonance diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) could reveal brain microstructural changes in childhood epilepsies with motor coordination problems (MCP) and whether DKI findings are correlated with neuropsychological assessments. Sixteen patients with childhood epilepsies were included; eight of these had lower scores on the Japanese version of the Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire (DCDQ-J) than the cutoff value, and these patients were categorized as the MCP group. Regions of interest analyses of the cortex were performed to compare the mean kurtosis (MK), fractional anisotropy, and mean diffusivity between the MCP and non-MCP groups. The MK value of the right precentral gyrus (PrCG) was significantly lower in the MCP group than in the non-MCP group (p = .021). Significant correlations between diffusion kurtosis metrics and the DCDQ-J scores were observed, particularly in the paracentral lobules. The receiver operating characteristic analysis for all patients indicated that the area under the curve for MK values of the right PrCG was 0.844, and the cutoff MK value to distinguish whether MCP was present was 0.587 (sensitivity, 100%; specificity, 75%). Our results indicate that the DKI findings of the right precentral cortex may be substantially useful as a biomarker for MCP associated with childhood epilepsy.