Identifying the Mechanisms of Anxiety in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy by Using Functional MRI

Abstract

Psychiatric comorbidities of epilepsy often have a critical impact on patients' quality of life, and the underlying neural mechanisms are still unclear, while the relationship is supposed to be bidirectional. Despite the high prevalence, little is known about the neural correlates in comorbid anxiety in epilepsy, and further investigation is needed. This research project investigated the relationships between anxiety symptoms and neural activities in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) during verbal and facial stimuli in functional MRI. As a result, anxiety symptoms in TLE reduced the neural response to verbal stimuli in posterior default-mode areas, and the reduced neural response to fearful stimuli was also found in similar areas. Considering the functions of posterior default-mode, anxiety in TLE may be associated with anxious arousal, memory, and/or hippocampal formation.