Diffusion tensor-based analysis of white matter in dogs with idiopathic epilepsy

Katrin M. Beckmann, Adriano Wang-Leandro, Frank Steffen, Henning Richter, Matthias Dennler, Rima Bektas, Ines Carrera, Sven Haller

Background: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) may be used to better characterize white matter in dogs with idiopathic epilepsy. The authors hypothesized that dogs with idiopathic epilepsy would have lower fractional anisotropy (FA) and higher mean diffusivity (MD) in several white matter tracts compared to healthy controls.

Study: The authors prospectively enrolled 26 dogs with idiopathic epilepsy and 24 healthy controls of the same breeds (Border Collies and Greater Swiss Mountain dogs). They performed DTI of the brain with a 3 Tesla MRI scanner and used tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) and region of interest (ROI) analysis to compare FA and MD values between the groups.

Methods: The authors used a modified TBSS pipeline adapted to dogs and ROI analysis for two regions commonly affected in human epilepsy: the corpus callosum and the cingulate white matter. They used permutation testing and Kruskal–Wallis test with post-hoc Dunn test to assess differences in FA and MD between the groups.

Results: The authors found no significant differences in FA and MD between the idiopathic epilepsy group and the healthy control group using TBSS. However, they found a significant difference in FA of the cingulate white matter between the groups using ROI analysis, with lower FA in the idiopathic epilepsy group. They also found significant differences in FA and MD of the cingulate white matter across three subgroups: the idiopathic epilepsy group, the healthy control group with a first-degree relative with idiopathic epilepsy, and the healthy control group with no family history of idiopathic epilepsy.

Limitations: The authors acknowledged several limitations of their study, such as the heterogeneity of the study population, the lack of correction for susceptibility-induced distortions, the short duration of epilepsy in most dogs, and the absence of histological correlation.

Conclusions: The cingulate area may be a target structure in canine epilepsy, but the changes were subtle and might be influenced by several factors. They suggested that further studies with larger sample sizes, longer follow-up, and different epilepsy syndromes are needed to better understand the white matter changes in canine idiopathic epilepsy.

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