Texture analysis of magnetic resonance images of patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy

Background/purposeJuvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) is the most frequent subsyndrome of the idiopathic generalized epilepsies, and experimental investigations support that the thalamus is a key structure in the mechanisms of JME. Texture analysis (TA) is an image processing technique which can be used to characterize images such as MRI.ObjectiveThe goal of this work was to investigate the thalamus of patients with JME using TA, a quantitative neuroimaging technique.MethodsPatients and controls were submitted to MRI investigation. Images were acquired in a 2-Tesla scanner. The T1 volumetric sequence was used for thalamic segmentation and extraction of texture parameters. Twenty-four patients with a diagnosis of JME and 20 healthy volunteers were investigated.ResultsTexture analysis revealed differences between the right thalamus of patients and controls.ConclusionsThe present investigation supports the participation of the thalamus in the disease mechanisms of JME. Texture analysis may be a useful tool in the quantitative neuroimaging investigation of the epilepsies and can be important to understand JME.