Alternative Point of View: Development of a Novel Task-Based fMRI Brain-Mapping Protocol for Deaf Epilepsy Patients

Abstract

About 30-40% of all epilepsies are drug-resistant and require alternative solutions. A subset of people has epilepsy as well as hearing impairments. Epilepsy surgery is considered an option only after a risks and benefits evaluation. This evaluation starts with functional brain mapping, where one of the popular and widely available neuroimaging techniques is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Unfortunately, current fMRI protocols for epilepsy patients strongly rely on audible communication, which is not an option when evaluating patients that have audible impairments or are deaf. Therefore, the current complexity of pre-surgical evaluation procedures leads to lower chances for non-hearing patients’ candidacy for epilepsy surgery. This proposal will address this challenge.

Previously conducted studies suggest that uncontrollable seizures have an effect on structural brain connectivity, which, in combination with differences in audible input processing, make it harder to obtain a reliable brain mapping. Therefore, this research proposes the (1) development of an alternative scanning protocol, suitable for deaf epilepsy patients. Additionally, to further investigate inter-patient neuroplasticity in deaf individuals, we aim to recruit healthy deaf volunteers to perform functional task-based and resting state scans via a 7 T MRI scanner. As a result, (2) a dataset of high-resolution will become a groundwork upon which we can develop a better understanding of pathologies in deaf patients. Moreover, obtained data will be used to (3) critically revisit previously proven functional regions of the brain, employing newer and updated connectome mapping tools, like diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI).