Takeaway
Focal cortical dysplasia co-localization to distributed functional networks is related to age of epilepsy onset, with earliest in sensory neural networks and latest in the limbic network.
Why this matters?
Although focal cortical dysplasia is the most common cause of pharmacoresistant epilepsy in children, predictors of age of epilepsy onset are unknown.
The findings reported here provide a potential biologic basis for the developmental differences in the variable age of epilepsy onset seen in children with focal cortical dysplasia-related epilepsy and further our understanding of focal epilepsy as a network disorder, which could ultimately improve treatment of pharmacoresistant epilepsy.