Functional brain networks and prediction models in childhood epilepsy

Abstract

Modern network science revolutionized the field of neuroscience and revealed significant insights into the organization of the brain. Throughout this thesis we applied a network analytical approach to improve our understanding of the pathological mechanisms underlying focal epilepsy. The presented studies suggest a network shift towards a less integrated network configuration and a failure of the normal hierarchical network in focal epilepsy, which is already present at an early stage of the disease and may aggravate at later stages. Furthermore, the network shift in focal epilepsy may be crucial to understand how the brain generates epileptic activity and the consequential development of behavioral and cognitive deficits in patients, which could provide new clinical opportunities for disease monitoring. Network differences between healthy controls and patients have already been proven to be useful in the process of diagnosing epilepsy. Together the studies illustrate the great potential of a network analytical approach to be ultimately used in clinical practice.