Abstracts

Summary: The relationship between prolonged febrile seizures (febrile status epilepticus) and temporal lobe epilepsy, remains unclear. Whereas some children develop epilepsy and/ or cognitive deficits after febrile status epilepticus, it is not possible to predict these outcomes for an individual child. Magnetic Resonance Imaging, MRI, holds promise as a biomarker, because MRI changes have been found after seizures in children and in an animal model. However, two major questions remain in both human and animal research of this area: 1. Is MRI predictive of epileptogenesis and/ or cognitive deficits? 2. What do the MRI changes signify at a cellular and molecular levels? Information about the meaning of these alterations might permit intervention and prevention. The proposed session will bring together clinicians, imagers and scientists to discuss our current understanding of these issues, and provoke interchange and cross-talks. 1. Darrell V. Lewis will discuss the MRI changes detected after febrile status epilepticus in humans (FEBSTAT study). 2. Celine Dubé will discuss novel and unpublished findings from several modalities of MRI (T2, DTI) in an animal model of prolonged febrile seizures, as well as the underlying pathology of these MRI changes. 3.Olli Gröhn will present innovative methodologies applicable to humans and animals for predicting both functional and structural reorganization in limbic circuits involved in epileptogenesis. Devin Binder will be a discussant and will comment on water content and movement, aquaporins and MRI.