Patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) suffer from
widespread subtle white matter abnormalities and abnormal
functional connectivity extending beyond the affected
lobe, as revealed by volumetric and functional MRI
studies. Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging and
fiber-tracking offer a noninvasive technique for mapping
human brain connectivity and have been increasingly used
to study patients with epilepsy. In this study we
investigated the effects of two types of TLE (
right-sided and left-sided ) on the global
characteristics of brain connectivity estimated by
topological measures to reduce the complexity of its
interpretation. We used Diffusion Spectrum Imaging (DSI),
a high angular resolution diffusion technique, to address
the difficulty of Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) to
disentangle multiple fiber orientations in a single
voxel. Further, a global tractography method was utilized
to reconstruction the non-dominate pathways.