Cortical thickness and sulcal depth: insights on development and psychopathology in paediatric epilepsy

BACKGROUND: The relationship between cortical thickness (CThick) and sulcal depth (SDepth) changes across brain regions during development. Epilepsy youth have CThick and SDepth abnormalities and prevalent psychiatric disorders. AIMS: This study compared the CThick–SDepth relationship in children with focal epilepsy with typically developing children (TDC) and the role played by seizure and psychopathology variables. METHOD: A surface-based, computational high-resolution three-dimesional (3D) magnetic resonance image analytic technique compared regional CThick–SDepth relationships in 42 participants with focal epilepsy and 46 TDC (6–16 years) imaged in a 1.5 Tesla scanner. Psychiatric interviews administered to each participant yielded psychiatric diagnoses. Parents provided seizure-related information. RESULTS: The TDC group alone demonstrated a significant negative medial fronto-orbital CThick–SDepth correlation. Focal epilepsy participants with but not without psychiatric diagnoses showed significant positive pre-central and post-central CThick–SDepth associations not found in TDC. Although the history of prolonged seizures was significantly associated with the post-central CThick–SDepth correlation, it was unrelated to the presence/absence of psychiatric diagnoses. CONCLUSIONS: Abnormal CThick–SDepth pre-central and post-central associations might be a psychopathology biomarker in paediatric focal epilepsy. DECLARATION INTEREST: None. COPYRIGHT AND USAGE: © 2015 The Royal College of Psychiatrists. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.