Regional cortical thinning and aberrant cortical folding in sleep-related hypermotor epilepsy

Motivation: We aimed to investigate the neuromorphometric abnormalities and their relationship with clinical characteristics in patients with sleep-related hypermotor epilepsy (SHE) by structural MRI. Goal(s): This is the first study to explore cortical microstructural alterations using surface-based morphometry (SBM) analysis in SHE patients. Approach: SBM analysis was used to evaluate cortical thickness, fractal dimension, gyrification, and sulcal depth. Results: SHE patients exhibited decreased cortical thickness in the left inferior-parietal, right superior-parietal, bilateral lateral-occipital, left fusiform regions, and decreased sulcal depth in the right precentral and postcentral gyri compared to controls. The cortical thickness of left inferior-parietal region was negatively correlated with illness duration. Impact: These findings demonstrate that aberrated thinning and folding of local cerebral cortices existed in SHE and may be associated with clinical hypermotor semiology. These cortical morphological variations might contribute to understand epilepsy network disturbances and underlying neuropathologic mechanism of SHE.