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Research project designed to identify the best method of using functional MRI as a pre-surgical tool for epilepsy surgery.
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There is currently a lot of interest worldwide into how to use brain scans to locate memory function in the brain, prior to surgery for temporal lobe epilepsy. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been particularly investigated. In memory fMRI testing, the person lies in the MRI scanner while a doctor asks them to remember things, such as pictures, faces, words, or a particular route through streets near their home. The scanner measures blood flow and oxygen consumption in the brain to see which parts are working during each question. Three different groups of researchers, from Philadelphia (USA), Bielefeld (Germany) and Professor Mark Richardson’s group at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, have carried out preliminary studies on memory fMRI. However each group used different procedures, with different memory tests, and each produced slightly different results. So which method is the most reliable? Professor Richardson will compare and contrast the three different procedures. The study will include 18 people with temporal lobe epilepsy. Each person will be tested with all three protocols on the same day, and will be retested, again with all three procedures, 2 months and then 4 months later. This will show how reliable each procedure is (for example, whether they can detect the same features in the same person after a two-month gap; or whether two different protocols can identify the same features in the same person). This study, called Memory fMRI as a clinical tool: establishing reliability, is the first step towards a formal trial of the best method to evaluate it for routine use in hospitals.