Abstract

Dorsal attention network (DAN) is associated with wide-ranging cognitive damage resulting in right temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Nevertheless, little is known about the relationship between DAN and TLE, let alone the alternations of network homogeneity (NH) of DAN in rTLE patients. Hence, in this study, we aim to utilize the NH approach to determine the NH of DAN in resting state TLE patients. 

There were 85 TLE patients and 69 healthy controls recruited, who went through resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and the attentional network test (ANT). The NH method and independent component analysis (ICA) were conducted to analyze the data. 

Comparing with the healthy controls, TLE patients showed significantly increased NH values in the right superior parietal lobule (SPL) as well as right precuneus (PCU). In addition, reaction time (RT) was found significantly longer in TLE patients in comparison with healthy controls. Last but not the least, there were no significant relationship between the clinical variables and abnormal NH values in TLE patients.

Our results indicated that abnormal NH of DAN was in the TLE patients and stressed the crucial role of DAN in the pathophysiology of cognitive damage in TLE. We also found that executive function (EF) significantly weakened in the TLE patients.