title: Potential use and challenges of functional connectivity mapping in intractable epilepsy.
abstract: This review focuses on the use of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data to assess functional connectivity in the human brain and its application in intractable epilepsy. This approach has the potential to predict outcomes for a given surgical procedure based on the pre-surgical functional organization of the brain. Functional connectivity can also identify cortical regions that are organized differently in epilepsy patients either as a direct function of the disease or through indirect compensatory responses. Functional connectivity mapping may help identify epileptogenic tissue, whether this is a single focal location or a network of seizure-generating tissues. This review covers the basics of connectivity analysis and discusses particular issues associated with analyzing such data. These issues include how to define nodes, as well as differences between connectivity analyses of individual nodes, groups of nodes, and whole-brain assessment at the voxel level. The need for arbitrary thresholds in some connectivity analyses is discussed and a solution to this problem is reviewed. Overall, functional connectivity analysis is becoming an important tool for assessing functional brain organization in epilepsy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Yale School of Medicine New Haven, CT, USA ; Department of Neurosurgery, Yale School of Medicine New Haven, CT, USA ; Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University New Haven, CT, USA ; Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Robert Todd
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Constable
authors.forename: Dustin
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Scheinost
authors.forename: Emily S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Finn
authors.forename: Xilin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hampson
authors.forename: F Scott
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Winstanley
authors.forename: Dennis D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Spencer
authors.forename: Xenophon
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Papademetris
keywords: connectome; epilepsy; fMRI; functional connectivity; graph theory; network theory; surgical planning