title: Brain complex network analysis by means of resting state fMRI and graph analysis: will it be helpful in clinical epilepsy?
abstract: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has just completed 20 years of existence. It currently serves as a research tool in a broad range of human brain studies in normal and pathological conditions, as is the case of epilepsy. To date, most fMRI studies aimed at characterizing brain activity in response to various active paradigms. More recently, a number of strategies have been used to characterize the low-frequency oscillations of the ongoing fMRI signals when individuals are at rest. These datasets have been largely analyzed in the context of functional connectivity, which inspects the covariance of fMRI signals from different areas of the brain. In addition, resting state fMRI is progressively being used to evaluate complex network features of the brain. These strategies have been applied to a number of different problems in neuroscience, which include diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. Hence, we herein aimed at introducing the subject of complex network and how to use it for the analysis of fMRI data. This appears to be a promising strategy to be used in clinical epilepsy. Therefore, we also review the recent literature that has applied these ideas to the analysis of fMRI data in patients with epilepsy.
authors.affiliation: Brain Institute/Onofre Lopes University Hospital, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Natal, Brazil.
authors.forename: Heloisa
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Onias
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, UFRN, Natal, Brazil.
authors.forename: Aline
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Viol
authors.affiliation: Brain Institute/Onofre Lopes University Hospital, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Natal, Brazil.
authors.forename: Fernanda
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Palhano-Fontes
authors.affiliation: Brain Institute/Onofre Lopes University Hospital, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Natal, Brazil.
authors.forename: Katia C
authors.initials: KC
authors.lastname: Andrade
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil.
authors.forename: Marcio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sturzbecher
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, UFRN, Natal, Brazil.
authors.forename: Gandhimohan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Viswanathan
authors.affiliation: Brain Institute/Onofre Lopes University Hospital, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Natal, Brazil. Electronic address: draulio@neuro.ufrn.br.
authors.forename: Draulio B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: de Araujo
mesh_terms: D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000503:physiopathology*
keywords: Complex network; Epilepsy; Graph; Resting state; fMRI