Abstracts

RATIONALE:Altered cardiovascular autonomic regulatory system function has been suggested to be associated with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) manifesting itself as changes in heart rate variability as well as impaired cardiovascular reflexes. Hippocampal (HC) sclerosis and atrophy are pathognomic features of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy, and they are seem as HC volume loss in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Our aim was to evaluate the association of altered HR variability with HC volume loss. METHODS:We measured traditional spectral and non-spectral components of heart rate variability, instantaneous beat-to-beat variability and long-term continuous variability analyzed from Poincar plots, fractal correlation properties, approximate entropy of RR-interval dynamics and the slope of the power-law relationship from 24-hour ambulatory ECG recordings in 29 patients with TLE. MRI was performed on a 1.0 T Magnetom and HC volume was calculated. RESULTS:Although decreased HC volume is related to the severity and duration of TLE, altered HR variability was not associated with HC volume loss. CONCLUSIONS:These results suggest that altered HR variability is not associated with HC volume loss in patients with TLE. Therefore, more studies are needed to clarify the effects of duration and severity of epilepsy, as well as the effect of antiepileptic drugs on HR variability in TLE patients.